Photos by Bernardo De Niz.

One of the easiest ways to strike up a spirited conversation with a young Chinese urban man is to talk about the NBA.

It usually begins with talk of where I’m from (USA? OK!), then by process of association drifts to Yao Ming, undoubtedly the most famous Chinese sports star in the world, the center for the Houston Rockets, and why his team hasn’t done better.

When people find out I’m from Florida, they always ask about Shaquille O’Neal, the star center of the Miami Heat, and I’m always happy to engage them on that topic, also one of my pet subjects.

I’ve been aboard the train that goes from Beijing to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, and one of the stewards on the train, spent 10 minutes telling me why Kobe Bryant, the flashy Los Angeles Lakers star (who I happen to detest), is the best player in the NBA.

We debated the matter vigorously. His knowledge was more than passing. He could discuss the starting lineup of the Heat in detail, then drift into minutiae of the Phoenix Suns. Since the NBA games are often transmitted on Chinese TV in the morning, when I’m working, I couldn’t keep up with him after. Moreover, the Chinese know the stars by their Chinese names, so O'Neal sounds something like this: Oh-KNEE-are. It took me several seconds to figure out who he meant when he began to talk about Suns center Amare Stoudamire, with a Chinese transliteration that didn't sound very similar.

The train, by the way, is a feat of engineering. We left Lanzhou, capital of Gansu Province in western China, and within 10 hours were already up on the Tibetan-Qinghai Plateau at more than 14,000 feet. The hiss of compressed oxygenated air filled the sealed train.

We’re a group of three, and all of us slept a bit fitfully from the change in altitude.

The next afternoon, we sat in the dining car and watched the magnificent scenery change before our eyes. Herds of yak. Endless rocky plateaus. All of it above the treeline.

We strolled through the other wagons of the train, teeming with Chinese migrant workers, traders and engineers headed for Tibet, where majority Han Chinese are headed in great numbers. 

I’ll have regular postings about the trip in coming days.

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Copyright China Rises: Notes from the Middle Kingdom