I moved to New York City in the summer of 1999. I didn't feel like a true New Yorker until about a year later when, one Saturday night at two AM, after an interminable wait for the F train, I let nature (and alcohol) get the best of me: getting off the train at my stop, I dawdled until I was the last one on the platform, and then peed on a subway column. My apartment was a few blocks away, but suddenly I felt like I was home. I was a New Yorker -- answering nature's call the way so many other New Yorkers did.
Such action was necessary only because I had to wait so long for my train. But in China, many travelers are faced with a different conundrum: being on a packed train for up to twenty-four hours at a time. No room to move, no room to breathe, no room to make one's way to the bathroom.
The occasion is Lunar New Year, during which millions of Chinese pack the trains to spend the holiday with their families. With 2,000 people crammed for a day or more on a train built for half that number, there isn't much choice. The result: in Foshan, Guangdong province, a 50% increase in sales of incontinence pads.
I wonder if this rite of passage is as important to Chinese men and women as peeing in the subway was for me. More likely, it's the opposite: you know you truly belong when you can make the rail journey without soiling your pants. Whether it's jostling for a position near the train's crapper, preparing for the inevitable with an adult diaper, or a two-day fast before the journey begins, Chinese New Year travelers know they've got the system mastered when they exit the train with pants as clean as they were when they got on.