Finally I get to write about Cyclops

*originally posted 31 October 2007

In honor of Halloween and all.

We’re finally out of Chengdu, the largest city in western China (I think so & Steve thinks so, so it’s so). Being there wasn’t exactly a slice of cake for us, and we think it all started with Cyclops, whom we had the pleasure of meeting during the overnight train from Xi’an to Chengdu. Here goes…oh, and Steve will add his commentary in the brackets [ ].

We caught the train a little after 8 pm– it didn’t originate in Xi’an, so we boarded knowing full well there was the likely possibility that our cabin-mates (four bunks/cabin) were already on and settled. When we got to our own cabin, the door was closed. Huh. Maybe they’re already sleeping? Okay, we’ll just go in quietly and try not to disturb them.

Enter Cyclops. A big, burly Chinese beast of a man [he was no man!] wearing nothing but tight long underwear, leaving nothing to the imagination–not that you’d want to imagine [I saw a mushroom head!], sprawled out on one of our bunks, and shoveling into his mouth–get this–fried pork rinds while dropping every third one onto the pillow. Our pillow [actually my pillow–and sheets. Also, the small table between the bunks was overflowing with spilled tea, more pork rinds, and the trash can overstuffed with assorted odds and ends from the beast, all within a few inches of where my head should lay].

Now, it’s an unspoken rule that if you arrive to the cabin before your other bunkmates that you leave any bed that’s not assigned to you the hell alone. You don’t sit on it (even if it’s a lower bunk), you don’t set your luggage on it, it doesn’t exist for ya. Because very soon someone’s going to be laying their weary self on it and like the Golden Rule says, you wouldn’t want to lay somewhere that some stranger’s put their crap on, or worse, themselves on.

But there was Cyclops, in his tight long johns [and exposed mushroom head] eating his greasy pork rinds in all his glory. We started furiously gesticulating that you, disgusting man, should give us your bunk since you’ve now ruined ours for further use-and certainly not somewhere that we’re going to sleep. And Cyclops–disgusting, gross Cyclops–nonchalantly gets up and in no uncertain terms lets us know that nope, you dumb foreigners can have this bed I just got done pooching up–look, I’ll even wipe the dropped pork rinds off yer pillow, there ya go–and I’ll be sleeping in my untouched bed [except for the shit stains that I saw, which is probably why he was on mine] up there.

Oh HELLS no.

So not only is Cyclops a disgusting shit, but he’s a mean one too.

Steve whirls around and heads for the end of the railcar, desperate to flag down someone, anyone, with authority to fix this. Meanwhile Cyclops puts a cigarette in his mouth and lights it, defiantly staring at me the whole time as if to say whatcha gonna do, princess? (Smoking’s another no-no in the sleeper cabins–amazing for China.) Without taking my eyes off him I screamed, “Steve. STEVE! HE’S F—ING SMOKING!”

“Are you f—ing kidding me?”

I joined Steve, and soon after Cyclops joined us (long johns and all) to finish his cig at the end of the railcar where smoking is allowed. What happened next is almost comical. There we were, the three of us, in this tiny 2′ x 6′ space, Cyclops smoking and unabashedly staring at us, Steve and I (still with our huge packs on) just fuming, fuming and willing all sorts of horrible things. And it’s as if he thought, how many disgusting things can I do to REALLY piss them off? So in the next two minutes, he burped, farted (long trucker farts too), spat (in all fairness 95% of Chinese spit in public, grody nonetheless), picked his nose, gave his crotch a good tug, and capped each nostril while snorting all the snot out of the opposite. A real class act, this one.

Eventually we were able to locate someone who spoke English and in turn translated to one of the stewards; naturally the whole commotion drew quite a crowd. (The stoic, typically non-confrontational Chinese seem to get a kick out of us Americans when we get emotional.) No, you can’t be assigned to another cabin, no bunks are left. Yes, you can have a change of sheets for both beds. Cyclops, please don’t smoke in the room anymore

During all this, by the way, Cyclops had gotten naked and under the provided blanket up in his bunk. [Looking as innocent as a puppy does when they know they’ve done something wrong]. I know he was naked because I saw the long johns wadded up by his pillow and less than an hour later (time for another cig break!) I got the pleasure of seeing Cyclops throw off the blankie and put them back on to leave the cabin. Which is a memory I would never, ever care to revisit again.

So our Chengdu experience started off with that 16-hour train trip. It got better, but we still felt the Cyclops jinx/curse/what-have-you the entire time with all the various headaches and hassles encountered. There were highs…the Giant Panda Breeding Center, the teahouses, Remnin Park, the rickety haunted house just in time for Halloween, and I won’t even get into the beautiful 2-day side trip of Wolong–wonderful Wolong and the year-old panda cubs we got to play (play! as in hug and hold!) with [I have a new girlfriend who’s short, stubby, black and white, and kisses & hugs like a champ. Her name is Ginger.]. But we’d both be lying if we said we weren’t happy to feel our plane lifting off this morning as we finally left Chengdu behind. Hello, Guilin.