My trip to Xingjiang

The meaning of The spring festival to Chinese people is similar to Christmas for westerners, people travel from the cities they work in, to the counties and villiages they were born and raised in, more than half of the population are involved in this rush to go home.

For me, it was during the summer last year when I realized that I had never visited the place where my family called home before my birth. After discussing with my parents , we decided to go over for the spring festival. It was their first time to celebrate spring festival in Xingjiang for over thirteen years.  Due to the ” spring rush”, It was extremely hard to get  train tikets during that period of time, my parents contacted a friend to get ours, which were two times expensive than usual. My dad called my uncle, we were going to stay at their house. After everything was arranged, our wonderous journey began.

Personally, I wouldn’t call the first part off our journey pleasant, our precious tikets turned out to be a  cramped bunker we shared with three other people, the whole coach shared one bathroom and one washbasin ,even though passengers were only allowed to smoke cigarettes in the connections between the carriages , everthing still reeked of tobacco. But when I first set my eyes on the big windows in the corridors, I cannot move them off , I watched as skyscrapers and buildings which I was used to seeing gradually fall into even rows of crops and farmland, unlike the close packed apartments, The cottages stand alone viewing the canals criss-crossing towards the horizon where they meet the sun, dipping down and setting the sky on fire, after every last spark turned to ashes, the curtains were drawn. That was not my first night on a train, but with the train thrashing under me and my bunk mate snoring into the dark, made it impossible to get any sleep.

The next morning ,we were informed that we are reaching areas with high altitudes, I knew it when my bag of chips (not crisps) exploded. The view outside was better than ever, moutains glistened with snow, the valleys lined with pine trees standing up tall and poised, I’ve never seen such a blue sky, electric blue, clear without clouds. When lunch was called, we filed into the cafe, meals were more than okay, you can see the chef working , every table was clean attendants were active. Meals, were the best experience I had.

Finally, we arrived at Urumchi on the following morning, it was already nine, but outside suggested midnight, when me and my parents reached the platform, I drew in a deep breathe, inhaling the sweet air, so much better than the train. Rethinking the whole event, I realized  that no matter how bad my impression is, it is still a whole new experience, home is home yet experience sticks forever.

 

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Comments (1)

  1. “bag of chips (not crisps) ” 😆  A nice bit of cross-North Atlantic linguistic banter!

    Your description of this journey reminds me of the first time I went out to Xinjiang – 35 hours on a stinky smokey sleeper but then the views across the desert with the snow-capped mountains in the background were spectacular.

    Pay attention to capitalisation and run-on. I guess errors may have come from cutting and pasting. Make sure you proofread your work after editing.