By Gavin Jon Mowat, People's Daily Online
Wu Yi Holiday – Day 1
As China's Wu Yi (May 1st) holiday approaches it's time to think of how we can spend our shortened three day break. Perhaps against the grain of the "happy holidays," Lake and I decide to take the time to visit a friend of her family who is receiving treatment for leukemia in a hospital in Tianjin. We will spend a total of two short days in Tianjin, a city which is becoming more accustomed to weekend tourists from Beijing thanks to the 30 minute high-speed rail link from the capital.
The new Beijing-Tianjin high-speed railway station in Beijing
A bullet train comes into the station Despite being a national holiday in China we take the somewhat unusual step of not booking tickets and just turning up at the train station in the hope of getting a ticket. If you are at all familiar with China's train stations or any other forms of public transport for that matter, you might think that would be a forlorn hope. And you would be right; expecting to get on a train ahead of swathes of people who have already booked tickets is madness... Except that the relatively new Beijing-Tianjin high-speed rail link has a train leave every thirty minutes. Granted, because this is a national holiday, when we arrive at the shiny modern station at around 12 noon, the next train we can get that isn't fully booked is at 3.50 pm. However, maybe because I'm accustomed to Victorian railway stations in the UK I was quite happy to spend some time in this futuristic dome of a train station.
A modern station shines
A sunset from the trainA couple of hours go by quite quickly as we sit in Costa Coffee talking and taking photos. There is a boy next to us who is wearing a pink shirt and has his hair done up like a girl… It looks like he has lost a bet, I hope. After milling around the station a while longer we hear the call for our train and people start the usual rush towards the gate. However at this station there are subtle differences compared with the normal surge towards trains. This time there are less large bags carried migrant workers, there seems to be slightly less of an uncontrolled rush. Then of course down on the tracks sits a clean white, streamlined bullet train. We then board the train a remarkably calm and civilized manner. As we get comfortable in the spacious seats in the new train we begin to wander just how fast it will go. Matching our expectations the journey is quick, noting the speed scrolling past on a digital screen that reads ‘337 km/ph'. The bullet train whisks us to Tianjin in a little under 30 minutes.
Construction of a new Tianjin
Crowds wait in relative comfortTianjin's appearance is one that is consistent with cities all over China; it has a massive amount of on going construction. However one thing that is not too familiar is the presence of colonial era foreign architecture. After the novelty of arriving in a city that neither of us had really visited before (Lake had been here once before to do a university entrance examination), we turn our attention to visiting Lake's friend in hospital. Lake has filled me in on her story; she is a young woman, a year older than me at 28, and she and her husband (a practicing Buddhist almost at a level where he can become a monk) have not long had a child. After giving birth to her son, she fell ill with leukemia and has since been receiving treatment in Tianjin's specialist blood hospital.
We jump in a taxi and head to the hospital on Nanjing Road; I will admit I am preparing myself to meet a scrawny ill looking woman, tired from more than a year of treatment. But when we arrive in the hospital we are greeted by a surprisingly healthy looking woman and her mother. She has a thin covering of hair but it's enough to not be able to see her scalp – in other words she has more hair than me! After more than a year of treatment she looks well fed and her face and eyes gave off a glow that one would not expect to find in the confines of a cancer treatment ward. She is in a room with another patient who appears in a worse condition, probably because she has just finished a course of treatment. The room as well as the hospital building is modern and in good condition. The twin bed ward comes equipped with 2 TV's, tables and a couple of spare fold out beds for relatives who want to stay the night. Each bed also has a clear plastic, super clean curtain that can surround the patient if they are particularly vulnerable to infections. She and her mother seem in high spirits. And I mean genuine high spirits. It is not just a show of face in front of visitors, they really seem to have an aura of strength and hope that is helping them cope with this unimaginably difficult situation. They both seem happy to see us and the conversation starts with some typical polite Chinese greetings, followed by compliments on how well everyone looks. When we entered the room she was sitting on her bed knitting. She does a lot of this now, making small toys amongst other things. Despite not being able to get out of the ward she seems to be quite content with being able to knit, watch TV and talk with her mother. Then the topic moves to something that gives her great happiness – her son. We look at pictures of her son, remarking on how happy he looks and that he is very similar to his father. Her face lights up as we laugh about her son's inability to make a ‘v' sign with his fingers. Instead her little boy will hold up one index finger from each had when posing for photos. It's clear that she draws a lot of strength from the thought of her son. Her mother suggests that we should prepare to go out for dinner to let her daughter and the other patient rest. She brings out food for her daughter that she has prepared at home. We say our goodbyes and let her eat in peace.
Tainjin cityscape
Tainjin, a city with old, colonial and newWe go with her mother to eat at a nearby hot pot restaurant. All the while Lake is reminding me that as the man and as a mark of respect, I must insist on paying the bill. But I made the mistake of underestimating the strength of this woman. We wait until she decides to go to the toilet, then I ask a waiter for the bill. One waiter directs me to another where I insist that he doesn't let the lady pay, he says "ok" and goes to fetch the bill. Another waiter comes back telling us that it has already been paid! Her strength is something she has come to have though her life experience and this situation has honed it into a ruthless efficiency. Her mother has moved here to Tianjin renting an apartment minutes from the hospital. The cost of renting an apartment in Tianjin and hospital fees means that her daughter's husband has to continue working in Guangdong to raise money; as a result he is only able to visit on the odd occasion. Every day she gets up early to cook meals for her daughter. Not just ordinary meals but ones which are sensitive to the principles of Chinese medicine. She has studied how to cook such meals herself, saying that she must make every effort to keep her daughters strength up. Commenting on precautions she must take she says "I just cannot get ill!" with conviction. As I listen to the conversation I think to myself that this routine is relentless enough without the unimaginable added burden of seeing your own daughter go through such trauma. My admiration for them both grows immensely.
After our visit, we take a moment to reflect on how much respect we have for all the family who are directly involved with this experience. Although I had just met these people I was already in admiration of them. Their situation is harrowing for all involved but from my point of view it looks like they are coping remarkably well. Their spirit of resolve is being tested and they are passing with flying colors. We would all do well to follow their example of keeping up spirits in testing times, after all our lives my just be a test…
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