"Sue-Joe"
The high-speed train ride from Qingdao to Suzhou is roughly seven hours. The last time I was on one of these trains was in Japan. Might as well be a million years ago or yesterday.
The train pulled into our stop at 11pm. Next was a seven-mile cab ride from the train station to our hotel. Amanda, Zheng, and I loaded our bags into the smaller of the two awaiting cars, and off we went. Sam, Julie, and Karl were in the van behind.
As we drove though Suzhou in the darkness, Zheng spoke Mandarin with the driver, probably telling him why she was with a gaggle of white people and where we were headed next.
Meanwhile, I stared out the cab window. Unlike everywhere we'd been before, this place had few street lights. And also few buildings. We drove under so many overpasses and freeway junctions that this city felt like a place people pass on their way to somewhere else. The streets were empty besides the stench of something I couldn't place. Perhaps a city left behind. Our only companions were the now-familiar and dull-colored condo stacks huddled together in the distance. Their dingy coloring camouflaged them against the backdrop of the night. Besides them, it felt like we were alone in China and soaring through space.
The condo buildings were only visible because of faint beacons leaking from a handful of windows on each floor. This littering of light looked like the fleck of stars, showing proof of life and existence far out of reach. A Chinese sky nursery. The Suzhou Milky Way. Inhabitants within those dim-lit stars were perhaps reading the newspaper, tucking kids in, or maybe looking out at us through the window of their own.
We arrived at the hotel, and I was jolted back to Earth. The handing over of passports, the handout of hotel key cards, and a shower to wash off the train. And like another déjà vu, we tucked ourselves into beds both new and yet familiar.
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
/1x.jpeg?auto=webp)
/1x.jpeg?auto=webp)
/1x.jpeg?auto=webp)
/1x.jpeg?auto=webp)
/1x.jpeg?auto=webp)
/1x.jpeg?auto=webp)