I’m now back in Wuhan, having made the last leg of the trip in style on the newly-opened Harmony Express (和谐号), a high-speed train that connects Guangzhou to Wuhan in around 3 hours, making it the fastest in the world. It’s more expensive than the slower sleeper train — 490 rmb for a ticket in second class, as opposed to 248 rmb for hard sleeper on the ~12 h overnight train. It also leaves from a brand new “Guangzhou South” train station that’s still in construction, is outside the city, and looks more like an airport than a train station, and arrives in Wuhan at another brand new station that’s also on the outskirts of the city. But despite the price and hassle of getting to and from the train stations, it’s still more convenient than flying, and (most importantly) much more cool.
Speeding to Wuhan at 349 km/h
It was also my only choice — Spring Festival travel madness has begun, and tickets for regular trains are only available one day in advance at the train station (or at higher prices from illegal ticket scalpers). When I got to the station, the only tickets available for the 12 hour train ride to Wuhan on regular trains were standing tickets. Even the Harmony Express, which has a separate booking system, was already sold out between the 5th and 11th — but luckily same-day tickets were still available when I finally reached the ticket-counter, after more than an hour in line in the crowded train station.
The train has only been running for a little over a month, but they’ve clearly put a lot of effort into making the ride a first-class experience. There were free water bottles at the train station, the train staff marched onto the platform in a perfect straight line, and everyone at the over-staffed train station was very friendly. When the train I was scheduled to take was delayed, the staff was thrown off script and put us on another train, which caused problems at the next stop when the passengers who had paid for tickets with the seat numbers we had been assigned boarded the train. But after 20 minutes or so of angry passengers fighting over the seats (and a few gallant passengers giving up their seats for others), the issue was finally worked out, and I got to ride in first class for the rest of the trip home (which, to anyone considering paying more for a first class ticket, wasn’t very different from second class).
A harmonious march to the platform
As for the name of the train, the phrase “harmonious society” is the catchphrase of the Hu Jintao administration, and can be seen everywhere, from advertisements in magazines to slogans painted on the walls in the city urging us to “build a harmonious society”. When controversial content is blocked or taken off major websites under government pressure, people say that it’s been “harmonized” (or “river crabbed”, which has a similar pronunciation). So for me, the word “harmony” has lost its positive ring. But I guess for a train that aims to be fast, comfortable and connect the country, I can live with having the word “harmony” tacked on in one more place.
In the taxi home from the train station, I asked the taxi driver how much the project had cost. More than 10 billion yuan just for the Wuhan station, he told me. I assumed I was translating the numbers wrong in my head, and checked it online: just the Wuhan station alone reportedly cost 14 billion yuan. A lot of money — but maybe as good a way as any to pump stimulus money into the economy (although there’s disagreement on whether or not the investment is sound), and definitely responding to a demand for more transportation infrastructure, especially at time like Spring Festival when the whole country is in motion. Although again, it’s hard to say if the Wuhan-Guangzhou route needed this the most — there were probably big kickbacks for whoever approved this project. But definitely a big plus for those of us who live in Wuhan, who through this and the new high-speed train to Shanghai can enjoy our new-found connectedness to the rest of China.