Last Updated on January 19, 2017
[lastupdated]
Have you ever bought a train ticket for a bullet train in China? Or are you planning to travel in China with bullet trains? In this article, I will show you a typical Chinese bullet train ticket and decipher the ticket and vocab for you.
Chinese Bullet Train Tickets
Below is a what a typical Chinese bullet train ticket looks like.
Below is what the same ticket looks like, but with labels.
Chinese Bullet Train Ticket Vocabulary Explained
I will explain the vocab of the ticket starting from the top reading left to right and then going down.
2015 年 03 月 08 日 – This means that the train will leave on 08 March 2015. In Chinese, they always put dates as year, month, followed by the day.
12:47 开 – This means that the train will leave at 12:47 PM.
明珠站 售 – This means that the train ticket was sold at Ming Zhu station.
03 车 03C 号 – This means you will be in car #3 and seat #3C. All Chinese trains have several cars, and every car has a number on it.
二等座 – (er4 deng3 zuo4) – 2nd class seat. On bullet trains there are 1st class and 2nd class seats. 1st class seats are slightly nicer than 2nd class seats, though more expensive.
明珠 – Ming2 Zhu1. This is the name of the origin station. Ming2 Zhu1 is the name of the station, which is in Zhuhai 珠海 (the town bordering Macau). Here you can see this train station on the map.
C7632 – This is the number of this specific train. Just like knowing when you train leaves, you need to know the train number. Often times, there will be many trains in a station, so you need to make sure that you find the right train.
顺德学院 is the name of the station you will arrive at. 顺德学院 is the abbreviation for the stop at Shunde Polytechnic whose full name is (顺德职业技术学院). Shunde is a district of Foshan, Guangdong. Here is a link on a map where you can look at Shunde Polytechnic station.
¥ 50.00 元 – means the ticket costs 50.00. ¥ is a Japanese and Chinese symbol for money (Yen in Japanese and Yuan in Chinese). 元 is the official Chinese Character to mean currency, and the assumption is that it will be in Chinese currency or RMB.
和谐号 “harmonious number” – I was not sure what this meant, so I had to look it up. This link in Chinese explains it. Basically, it is a number that China Railways High-Speed uses to indicate a train with foreign technology. The long number at the bottom of the ticket is the “harmonious” number. You can ignore this number because it shouldn’t be important for you.
限乘当日当次车 –This link from Baidu explains 限乘当日当次车 what means. The basic meaning I get from that link is that 限乘当日当次车 means the ticket becomes invalid if you miss the train, and you can only change the ticket 2 hours and before.
Below 乘当日当次车 will be the name of the passenger. I removed the given name, but you can still see the surname. The full name will most likely be written in Chinese Characters. If the passenger is a foreigner, his or her name will be written in Pinyin (Romanized Chinese).
Below the passenger name is the ID of the passenger. (I removed most of the numbers, but you can still see the last 4 numbers of the ID). It will be the local ID for a Chinese citizen or passport number of a foreigner.
I am not sure what the upper left number in red letters means. But in any case, you can ignore it because it shouldn’t be important for you.
Here you can see on a map what the whole trip looks like from Ming Zhu station to Shunde Polytechnic station.
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