At the Train Station

Even though I have been warned numerous times about the safety in the city, I just couldn’t resist taking a little walk at the Dongquan train station to understand the way of life in this city.

There are a mixture of people in the train station. Some are excited, some anxious, some grumpy, and some are indifferent. They all have their own stories and just happen to converge at the same place at the same time.

In China there are motorcycle taxis, they are not licensed and the prices are often agreed upon before boarding. They were equally curious to see me walking around. With my broken mandarin we managed a short conversation. One driver even offered to take me for a spin but I politely declined.

I learned that the business is highly competitive and intertwined with a lot of underlying politics (protection fees, right to work in specific areas, etc). I was touched by their genuine smiles and respect their hard work to earn a living.

For those that followed the news, there was a major rainstorm a week ago that caused major flooding and paralyzed the cities in the Guangdong province.


They had built emergency bridges in the underground tunnel of the train station. I thought it was really exciting!

A co-worker paid one of these 3-wheeled taxis $20RMB to get him across a flooded street. In the middle of the road, the chain came off and the driver had to go behind to push, when they got across my co-worker saw that the driver had lost one of his slippers in the water….rough day.