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After some shoving and elbow jabbing, we boarded our train in Beijing, bound for Kunming, the capital on Yunnan province in southern China. We'd booked sleeping berths, but finding them presented a problem. Apparently we'd boarded the wrong carriage. We pushed through a fray of people and disembarked. After tracking down a conductor, he informed us that we'd been on the right car from the start, but it would be better for us to enter from the other side. This didn't make any sense to us at the time, but we headed to the other end of the car and pushed our way through to our sleeping berths. Upon locating the berths, we found them occupied. Two men and a woman were sitting comfortably in our places, drinking tea from a thermos. They told us that these weren't our berths. We set our heavy packs on the floor and looked at our tickets and waited. After half an hour the same conductor we'd met on the platform came by. Taking our tickets in his hand he gave us a sheepish grin and shrugged his shoulders. Then he shooed the people away from our bunks. We would be on that train for two nights, three days and almost 2000 miles. It was the slow rail to Kunming.

Still relatively young and limber, we settled into our berths, complaining only a little about the cramped quarters. Two of us were too tall for the space allotted. After a slight delay and some more pushing and complaining by other people on the train, the carriage shifted back and then slowly rolled forward. We were on our way. The first thing I did was set out my stuff, making sure no one else would lay claim to my space. This might seem a little selfish or territorial, but after enough train rides in China (unless you're traveling first class) you'd probably have done the same. At a small table nearby, two old men were playing cards. A young man from the country stood in the isle, blowing smoke from his cigarette out a crack in the window. I talked with my friends for a while, then opened my book and read for several hours. After that I curled up in my bunk and fell asleep. I woke for dinner, read some more and then slept again.

Sometime after midnight, I was stirred awake by a face pressing in close to mine. It was one of the men who had been occupying our berths. He asked if I was American and I answered that I was. Complementing on my Chinese, he stepped back and wished me a 'happy journey.'

The next day, waking just after sunrise, I took out some biscuits from my bag and sat down to have a rudimentary breakfast of stale bread and Coca Cola (I was on a budget at the time). Before finishing, the man from the previous night came down the isle and sat by my side. He looked at what I was eating and shook his head in dismay. He got up and left, returning a few minutes later with a bowl of hot rice and a few steaming sweet buns. He set the food in front of me and grinned. Half his teeth were missing. I thanked him for his offer, but declined the food. It wasn't a problem, he told me. This was his brother's breakfast and he was feeling ill. We shouldn't let the meal go to waste. I thanked him again and bit into one of the buns. He watched me eat for a while and then asked me if all Americans were rich. I told him no. There was a lot of wealth in my country, but a lot of poverty as well. Every city had homeless living on the streets. He nodded and thought about this, then, seemingly satisfied, stood up and left.

Through out the morning I read my book, bought some food from the dinning cart that passed by, talked with my friends and snoozed. Late that afternoon the man who'd brought me breakfast came by and sat by my side again. He didn't say anything. I asked him how he was. He answered that his back was hurting him. I expressed my sympathy and we sat in silence some more. After ten minutes or so he asked me if all Americans owned a car. I answered that not every American had a car, but in general we had a lot of cars. He wanted to know how many cars I had. I was embarrassed, because I actually had two. An ancient pickup I was fixing up and a rusty old sedan. Together they weren't worth very much, I tried to explain, but he seemed satisfied, as if two cars was the answer he'd expected all along. Every American owned two cars.

I saw him that night, passing by several times. Sometimes he would pause, but he could see that I was in conversation with my friends and some other Chinese we'd met on the train. He would nod at us and then be on his way. Late that night, after I'd prepared to hunker down for bed, he found me in the isle just as I was coming back from the toilet. He stopped me and asked if I would sit with him for a while. I agreed. So, he wanted to know, was America a good country? I told him that we had our problems, like any other country on the planet, but on the whole there were a lot of good things to be found there. After a small hesitation, he asked me if all Americans owned guns. Did I have a gun? I told him that I didn't own a gun. He seemed displeased. He'd heard that all Americans had guns and if I didn't own a gun that would mess up his equation. What about my friends, did any of them own guns? Most of them didn't, as far as I knew. He cradled his chin in his hand and though about that. Then he asked about my father. My father grew up in the deep woods of Alaska, with bears and moose in his backyard, so yes, he owned a few hunting rifles, but hadn't fired them since he was a teenager. This answer seemed to please him. Yes, he told me, all Americans have guns. America is a very dangerous place. I protested, pointing out that I'd just told him that I didn't own a gun and never had. "Well," he said, smiling his gaping smile, "I'm sure you'll own a gun someday."