Confederacy of Dunces

You want characters that make Ignatius look like a mild mannered protagonist (antagonist?), hop aboard a Chinese train. I had the (mis)fortune of a 10 hour ride from Xuzhou to Beijing, and let me just say I couldn't make this stuff up.

First, I barely made my train, not because of my poor planning (I had my things packed and ready to go an hour and a half before the train left), but because Daniel (picture an angry looking ex-military man) wanted to spend more time playing online poker. We arrived at the station with ten minutes to spare, but 5 minutes of security screening (they confiscated my shaving cream and aftershave!) led to a scramble to the train tracks. Then, after asking about switching my hard seater ticket to a hard sleeper (the train ride was an overnight, and I wanted some rest for the Olympic Opening Ceremony). So we stood out on the tracks, trying to figure out the possibility of that...then the train started moving. I quickly threw my luggage into the door of a car that was different from my ticket and prepared for the worst.

On the train, the service woman soon highlighted the fact that I did not in fact have the right ticket for this train car. I was aware of this, which I responded and asked if I could purchase a hard sleeper, adding the cost onto my sitter ticket. She said I should wait, so I took a hallway seat next to a Chinese family. We quickly entered discussion, and I soon learned that they also were going to see the Olympics and asked if I wanted to buy a ticket off of them. Little did they know, I had more tickets than I knew what to do with them.

After half and hour of uncertainty, and half expecting to be thrown, with or without my luggage from the train, I was ushered down a narrow corridor filled with gawking chinese people, squeezing my oversized suitcase through the throng. I officially felt like an ugly American.

It appeared that they had sectioned me off from the rest of the train, as I was the only person in the 6 person compartment (although that didn't last). Happy that I had a sleeper bunk, I set to finding a bowl of instant noodles and water. Yet an hour into the ordeal, my compartment was abustle with people, all of which seemed in awe of the foreigner sharing 2 cubic meters with them.

The lights went out around 9 pm, and with it, any hope of reading Confederacy of Dunces. Luckily I had my own characters within the cabin. My favorite was Jingles, the cabin assistant/bag woman with an OCD complex and a stealth demeanor. I gave her the name Jingles because every stop, she would sneak into the cabin, recongizable only by the jingling of her keys, take the wash basin and wooden entrance platform from under my bunk (not so silently), and then meticulously rearrange my shoes, which had only moved about 2 cm the whole trip. As a result, sleep from 9pm to 5 am was damn near impossible.

Then there was Avril in the bunk next to me. He got this name by his Avril Lavigne ringtone which would go off every time he received a text. Now in China, whenever you enter a city, you are sent a text message welcoming and trying to sell you things. Seeing as we stopped in at least 10 cities along the way, this meant that almost every 45 minutes, without fail, I'd here "He's just a Skaterboy, I'll see you later boy...", which also made sleeping for more than 45 minute increments impossible. A lovely encounter overall. When we did arrive, I had to take a cab across the city, to Haiwen's spot, and of course, the cabbie had no idea where to go. After pulling my luggage (all 120 pounds of it) about half a mile, I was able to make out the 6 foot 5 blond haired waiguoren walking down the street. The cabbie was so close, and yet sooooooo far.

At least I had arrived.