Why Cry in First Class
by Huina Zheng
After finishing a business trip in Changsha, Yao rushed back to Guangzhou by train. He’d arrived too late for an economy seat and could only get a first-class seat, which cost 230 yuan more. Once aboard, he found a mother sitting next to him, holding a boy of about three in her arms. The boy squirmed in his mother’s lap, letting out a little whine every now and then.
Rapid keyboard tapping came from behind him. Yao glanced over out of the corner of his eye and saw a young man in his twenties, his brow furrowed.
The mother took out a toy dinosaur, then told her son a story about the Monkey King. The boy wasn’t interested. He got increasingly restless. Yao took a bag of vegetable crackers from his backpack and held it out to him. The mother thanked him and apologized for bothering him.
“It’s fine,” Yao said. “I have young children too.”
The boy took a cracker, ate a couple of bites, and started whining again. Yao looked down at the child. His face was pale, with a bit of sweat on his forehead, and his little hand was clutching his mother’s shirt. That was how his daughter got when she was carsick.
Someone behind them spoke up. “I’m trying to sleep.” Another voice added, “Can’t the mother do something about this?”
The mother heard it too and leaned over to whisper in her son’s ear, “Sweetie, be quiet.” The boy’s face crumpled and he started crying. While soothing her son, the mother whispered, “I’m sorry” to those around her. Yao recalled how his wife would always pull their daughter aside before going out and remind her, “Keep your voice down. Don’t disturb others.”
He also remembered hearing of a time when his wife had taken their daughter to a children’s park. Their daughter fell asleep on the bus home. His wife stood there with the sleeping child in one arm and the bag over the other shoulder. No one gave her a seat. She had to keep her balance while shielding their daughter from the people around them. After that, his wife tried not to take their daughter out unless she had to.
Just then, a man’s voice came from behind him. “Aren’t the parents going to do anything? Do they have any manners? Do they even know they’re in a public place? I can’t sleep!”
Yao turned around. It was the young man who had been typing on his keyboard. The mother’s face flushed. She said, “I’m sorry,” adding that the child might not be feeling well and that she’d been trying to calm him down the whole time.
The man clicked his tongue. “This is so annoying.” He put his headphones on.
Yao wanted to say something. He looked down at the child. The boy’s face was buried in his mother’s chest, his shoulders heaving as his sobs were muffled by her clothes. He remembered when his four-year old daughter had gotten carsick and leaned against his shoulder, whispering, “Daddy, I don’t feel good.”
The mother held the boy, patting his back and rocking him. Eventually, his eyes closed. The carriage went quiet. The mother bent down to get a tissue from the shopping bag at her feet. Yao caught sight of a medical record inside.
“We took him to Changsha to see a doctor,” she said. “The doctor said to try Guangzhou. The hospitals there are better.” She paused. “I was afraid he’d bother people, so I paid extra for first class. Fewer people, more space. I thought I could keep him quiet.”
“It’s okay,” Yao said. “Don’t worry about it.”
Ten or fifteen minutes later, the boy woke up. He started crying.
“What’s wrong with him?” The young man ripped off his headphones and stood up, pointing at them. “You can’t control your own kid, and everyone else has to put up with it!”
The boy flinched at the shout and cried even harder. His mother wiped his tears, and then tears began running down her own face.
Yao’s head buzzed. He stood up and stared at the young man.
“Weren’t you a kid once? He’s two or three. You think you can reason with a kid that age? The more you yell at him, the more he’s going to cry. There are people talking, playing games, watching shows all over this carriage, and you don’t say a word to them. You pick on a little kid.”
The young man shouted, “What’s it got to do with you?”
“Say that one more time.”
People around them were holding up their phones. Yao noticed. If the video ended up online, people might only see a middle-aged man yelling at a younger guy. No one would ask what had happened before the camera started rolling. He glanced at the phones. “It’s fine,” he said. “We’re done here.” If the man opened his mouth again, Yao would shut him up himself. He wasn’t a violent person, but today he couldn’t stand there and watch a mother be treated this way. The child wasn’t being willfully troublesome; he was clearly uncomfortable with no convenient remedy. His mother wasn’t ignoring him.
The young man looked at Yao. His lips moved, but in the end he said nothing. He sat back down and put his headphones on again.
The mother was apologizing to Yao now. He came back to himself, and his voice softened. “It’s okay. You must be tired from holding him. Let him lie down in my seat for a while.” He’d been training his employees that afternoon and had been on his feet for four hours. Still, he remained standing, standing beside the seat.
An hour later, the train pulled into the station. The mother stood up with her son in her arms and thanked Yao once again. Yao nodded as he watched her disappear through the train door.
If it happened again, Yao thought, he would still stand up.
Copyright © 2026 by Huina Zheng
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