a canvassackfullofspeedometers,anda Chinesetrader
carrieddozensofdigitalclocksthatspokethetimeinRussian.
WhoinBeijingneededa Russian-speakingclock?Whyspeed-
ometersonthesteppes?
AnotherChinesetraderobsessivelyguardeda smallbag.
TheAmericansinhiscompartmentdidn’tknowwhatwas
inside,buttheysawthemanhandover$1,200totheChinese
conductor.Wasit a bribe?Weredrugsinvolved?Theconduc-
tor,whospokenoEnglish,didn’tseemworried;everyday
heloungedshirtlessatthecar’sentrance,cigaretteinhand.
Nearby,a signsaid“NoSmoking”inRussianandEnglish.At
last,a Europeanpassengerconfrontedtheconductor,miming
herdissatisfactionandpointingangrilyatthesign.Thecon-
ductor’sresponsewasalsosilent:Hewentinsidehisberth,
produceda screwdriver,andremovedthesignfromthewall.
EarlierthatsummerI hadcompletedmyseconddegreein
English,atOxford.OriginallyI’dhopedtobecomea profes-
sor,butI becamedisillusionedwithacademicwriting.After
sixyearsofuniversity,I stillfeltasif I lackedeventhemost
basicskillsandexperiences.I couldn’tspeaka secondlan-
guage,andI’dseenalmostnothingoftheworld.
Mynextstep,I decided,wouldbeinthewrongdirection.
RatherthanflyhometoMissouri,I wouldgoeast,byland.
TheschedulewasasopenastheSiberianplains:I hadn’t
appliedforanyjobs,andI gavemyselfhalfa yeartogethome.
I startedinPrague,accompaniedbya TexannamedTed
whowasalsosearchingforlifedirection.Togetherwebought
one-wayticketsthroughtheCzechRepublic,Slovakia,
Poland,andBelarusandintoRussia.
InMoscow,ourprogresswasabruptlyhaltedatYaroslavsky
station.TheguidebooksadvisedtravelerstopurchaseTrans-
Siberian tickets in
advance, through a
travel agent, but we
thoughtwecouldsave
moneybygoingdirectlytoa ticketwin-
dow,handingoversomecash,andsay-
ing,“Beijing.”Wedidn’trealizehowcrazy
thiswasuntilwearrivedinMoscow.Theredidn’tseemtobe
anycentralizedsystemforticketing.Forthreetortuousdays
wewentfromonewindowtothenext,atYaroslavskyand
otherMoscowstations.Finally,weweredirectedtoa non-
descript building where a clerk glanced at our passports, and
we handed over the equivalent of $230 each—that was all it took
to hop a train to the other side of the world.
As we approached Mongolia, the trader with the mysterious
bag carved a neat hole into the ceiling with a hacksaw. The
conductor stood nearby, directing the project. At the border,
our passports were marked with a red “CCCP”—almost three
years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, they still hadn’t
changed the exit stamps in Siberia. Russian soldiers wandered
through the compartments, poking at bags. I pretended to
read War and Peace. But the search was perfunctory; the
soldiers didn’t notice that a section of the ceiling had been
hacksawed and then replaced, and they paid no mind to the
Polish Marlboros or the Russian clocks.
Only the Mongolian with the speedometers was hassled
until he handed over $50 in U.S. cash. And that was it—the
next day, the Mongolian happily disembarked with all his
gauges at Ulaanbaatar. Later, after we crossed the Chinese
border, the trader with the hacksaw reopened the ceiling and
removed his bag. We never learned what was inside.
The train stopped; the trip continued. I hadn’t planned
on spending much time in China, which I knew mostly from
drab images of citizens in blue Mao suits. But once I arrived,
I felt an unexpected energy. People seemed motivated, and
they figured out solutions; even without a word of Chinese,
Ted and I were able to get around the country. We extended
our stay to six weeks, and then continued to Southeast Asia.Even now, moments from that trip still seem as vivid as if they
happened yesterday. We hitchhiked across Laos with some
truckers, sleeping on the roof of the cab at night. In Hong Kong
we signed up as foreign extras at a local studio, appearing in a
Cantonese film and soap opera. Everywhere, I read War and
Peace, until, with about 10 pages to go, I dropped the book into
an open toilet on the slow boat from Macao to Guangzhou.
I fished it out, cleaned the cover, and finished the novel.
Later, I traded with Ted, who’d been reading Anna Karenina. I
didn’t tell him about the toilet until he was in the final pages.
In the end, Ted found his path, and nowadays he’s a phy-
sician working with soldiers injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.
My own trajectory was set by the train. After returning to the
U.S., I wrote my first travel essay, telling the tale of the Trans-
Siberian. I mailed it off to a random name on the masthead
at the New York Times.
To my surprise the
paper published it,
and briefly I enter-
tained the idea of
traveling forever,
sending off stories.
But then I did something smarter: I applied to the Peace Corps
and requested an assignment in China.
I ended up living there for more than a decade, writing
about citizens who had transformed their lives in the post-
Deng Xiaoping era. Every now and then I remembered the
Trans-Siberian, where I’d first glimpsed a certain Chinese
combination of pragmatism, resourcefulness, and irrever-
ence: the conductor with the screwdriver, the trader with the
hacksaw. In Beijing I met a fellow writer and wanderer named
LeslieChang.Ourtwindaughterswereborninanothertrain
townhalfwayaroundtheworld:GrandJunction,Colo.We
namedonedaughterAriel,afterShakespeare’sTheTempest—
all of those years spent studying English literature were not
forgotten. Neither was War and Peace. Our other daughter
is Natasha, a half-Chinese Coloradan with a name from a
Russian novel. That old stained book still sits on my shelf. <BW>TRAVEL Bloomberg Pursuits June 29, 2020
59Was it a bribe? Were drugs involved?
The conductor, who spoke no
English, didn’t seem worried