Just about 50 years ago, needing money to support my family—my novels weren’t bestsellers—I had the idea of taking the longest train trip imaginable and writing a travel book about it. The trip was improvisational (即兴的). I didn’t have a credit card. I had no idea where I’d be staying nor how long this trip would take. And I’d never written a travel book before. I hoped my trip wouldn’t suffer a lot, though it was obviously a leap in the dark.

I set off with one small bag containing clothes, a map of Asia, a travel guidebook and some travelers’ cheques. I was often inconvenienced, sometimes threatened, now and then disturbed for bribes, occasionally laid up with food poisoning—all this vivid detail for my narrative.

What I repeated in the more than four-month trip was the pleasure of the sleeping car. Writing on board the Khyber Mail to Lahore in Pakistan, “The romance associated with the sleeping car comes from the fact that it is extremely private, combining the best features of a cupboard with forward movement. Whatever drama is being shown in this moving bedroom is heightened by the landscape passing the window...” A train is a carrier that allows residence.

I wrote The Great Railway Bazaar on my return in 1974, and it appeared to good reviews and quick sales. That’s the past. Nothing is the same. All travel is time-related. All such trips are singular and unrepeatable. It’s not just that the steam trains of Asia are gone, but much of the peace and order is gone. Who’d risk an Iranian train now or take a bus through Afghanistan?

But I’ve been surprised by some of the more recent developments in travel. I rode on Chinese trains for a year and wrote Riding the Iron Rooster, but now China has much cleaner and swifter trains and modernized destinations. A traveler today could take the same trip I took in 1986—1987 and produce a completely different book.

All travel books are dated. That’s their fault that they’re outdated, and it’s their virtue that they preserve something of the past that would otherwise be lost.

In ancient Egypt, the pharaoh (法老) treated the poor message runner like a prince when he arrived at the palace, if he brought good news. However, if the exhausted runner had the misfortune to bring the pharaoh unhappy news, his head was cut off.

Shades of that spirit spread over today’s conversations. Once a friend and I packed up some peanut butter and sandwiches for an outing. As we walked light-heartedly out of the door, picnic basket in hand, a smiling neighbor looked up at the sky and said, “Oh, boy, bad day for a picnic. The weatherman says it's going to rain.” I wanted to strike him on the face with the peanut butter and sandwiches. Not for his stupid weather report, for his smile.

Several months ago I was racing to catch a bus. As I breathlessly put my handful of cash across the Greyhound counter, the sales agent said with a broad smile, “Oh, that bus left five minutes ago.” Dreams of head-cutting!

It’s not the news that makes someone angry. It’s the unsympathetic attitude with which it’s delivered. Everyone must give bad news from time to time, and big winners do it with the proper attitude. A doctor advising a patient that she needs an operation does it in a caring way. A boss informing an employee he didn’t get the job takes on a sympathetic tone. Big winners know, when delivering any bad news, they should share the feeling of the receiver.

Unfortunately, many people are not aware of this. When you’re tired from a long flight, has a hotel clerk cheerfully said that your room isn’t ready yet? When you had your heart set on the toast beef, has your waiter merrily told you that he just served the last piece? It makes you as traveler or diner want to land your fist (拳头) right on their unsympathetic faces.

Had my neighbor told me of the upcoming rainstorm with sympathy, I would have appreciated his warning. Had the Greyhound salesclerk sympathetically informed me that my bus had already left, I probably would have said, “Oh, that's all right. I’ll catch the next one.” Big winners, when they bear bad news, deliver bombs with the emotion the bombarded (被轰炸的) person is sure to have.