We live about fifteen minutes walk from the nearest place you can buy train tickets, which in Beijing is saying something.
Actually our apartment is pretty much convenient for everything, except my work.
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Anyway, I went to the train ticket shop, or whatever it's called.
And armed with my increasing Chinese (and a very useful phrasebook) I asked for two tickets, using the correct measure word and everything.
Deciding I was one of the reasonable number of Laowais who can speak good Mandarin, the women at the window trotted of at linguistic pace.
Did I want train tickets she asked? Correct I responded.
When she asked?
So armed with the knowledge, I said, twelfth month, fifth day.
Twelfth Month, she repeated.
Yes I said, correct.
Twelfth? She tried again.
Yes I responded. Again.
Now she had begun to speak really slowly as she clearly had started to doubt my mental faculties.
Actually, so had I, I was starting to doubt it was approaching the third week of November. I was wondering if it was only October and I'd just got ahead of myself, or whether the Chinese railways ran on some other special calendar which only matched the Gregorian one during special occasions, like Eid and Yom Kippur.
But no, it transpired I was being ridiculous, you can't possibly buy train tickets this far in advance. I'd have to go back on the 25th. I left quite amiably, enrichened with some new knowledge. However, I did feel I'd have to share this experience with you all back home. It's not the fact that you have to wait to buy the tickets, the woman wasn't unpleasant or crazy. The noteworthy thing was simply that this woman could not comprehend the possibility that other places could exist where train tickets might be available three weeks in advance.
I'm definitely lucky to have visited lots of places and lived in a couple of different ones, but honestly... use your imagination woman, I didn't ask to rent a pair or unicorn wings to fly to Suzhou.
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