Riding the Snake (1998) Read Online Free PDF

impossible to see through, having been pelted relentlessly by the Kara Buran, the "Black Hurricanes," that blow apocalyptically out of the western deserts, starring and cracking the glass with flying rocks and gravel.
    Carrying his one knapsack of meager belongings, Fu Hai boarded the "Iron Rooster" and found his bed in hard sleeper on the first tier. After one day on the train, they were winding down the east face of the huge Tianshan range. Then they would head east on the five-day journey toward Beijing.
    After waking, his fellow passengers started their morning ritual, coughing and spitting globs of phlegm down on the floor of the car. Then they would jump out of bed, making sure to step on their own glob, much as one would step on a cigarette. It was considered impolite to omit this "step on it" courtesy, despite th e f act that all of the train cars had signs that demanded: NO SPITTING.
    HELP BUILD SPIRITUAL CIVILIZATION.
    There was a festive atmosphere aboard the train. People spoke freely, laughing, even making fun of things political. It was talk that would have gotten you locked up or even shot during the Cultural Revolution. Fu Hai discovered that trains were the only place in China where people could speak freely, because the passengers knew they would never see each other again. The moving, rattling conveyance provided a sense of safety that temporarily allowed them unheard-of freedom of speech. This free-flowing speech was also helped by liquor called kaoliang, which was made from sorghum and was as powerful as moonshine and plentiful as beer.
    It was almost New Year's, 1998, the Year of the Tiger. Fu Hai was excited to be on his way to America.
    The soldier who was sitting across from Fu Hai on the hard sleeper was from the Lop Nor nuclear proving ground in far northwest China. Fu Hai asked him if he'd ever heard of his brother, Zhang Lu Ping, but the soldier had not. The soldier had a medal on his uniform that he showed to everyone he talked to. It had been awarded to him for "Excellence of Political Thought," and Fu Hai decided not to say anything more to him. By noon, the soldier got very, very drunk and vomited in the aisle. Fu Hai and the other passengers screamed and yelled at him until he cleaned it up. The incident made Fu Hai feel stronger. They had made the soldier bend to their collective will. Fu Hai had become one of the group.
    Two days later, Zhang Fu Hai was a practiced traveler. He had learned to get off at the stations they encountered and buy sunflower seeds and hot dumplings from the traveling station vendors, whose prices were much cheaper than at the shops in the station kiosk. He would quickly reboard and climb back on the first-level board bed. The train would lurch out of the station and he would ride in silence, spitting sunflower seeds on the floor and smiling as they headed to Beijing.
    Three days later, Fu Hai looked out the cracked train windows as they passed the huge chemical smokestacks of Lanzhou.
    In Gansu Province, the landscape gradually turned greener and he saw the terraced hillsides and green rice paddies he vaguely remembered from his youth. He had a surge of homesickness for his father and mother and his beloved little sister, to whom he had written once a month for fourteen years, without ever receiving a reply. He wondered if she was alive or if his letters had been stopped by the party officials in Khotan. Or perhaps, if they ever got through, maybe her return letters had been opened, read, and just thrown away. He had been told by Government Communication ten years before that his mother had died of tuberculosis. Fu Hai would never forgive Chairman Mao for what he had done to his family. He remembered his father, forced to leave home wearing a dunce cap in shame and humiliation. He remembered the days after, the anger building in him as he sat in his classroom singing the Mao anthem. The lyrics were repugnant to him: "Mother is dear and Father is dear, but Chairman