The Hard seat (Chinese: 硬座; pinyin: yìng zuò), abbreviated YZ, is the lowest class of seating in China Railway. It is the basic fare, somewhat similar to the economy class on an airplane.
Hard seat derives its name from the hard, wooden seats in the Mao era on regular passenger trains. Since the 1990s, "hard seat" on modern trains is not in fact, hard. Many hard seats are quite comfortable, but with respect to soft seat, hard seat carriages are usually more crowded (2+3 vs. 2+2), and people without seats may stand in hard seat carriages.
Each carriage provides the most basic services common to all Chinese trains, namely toilets, wash basins and a boiling water dispenser for the preparation of instant ("pot") noodles and similar foods.
Famous quotes containing the words hard and/or seat:
“For he could coin, or counterfeit
New words, with little or no wit;
Words so debas’d and hard, no stone
Was hard enough to touch them on;
And when with hasty noise he spoke ‘em;
The ignorant for current took ‘em;”
—Samuel Butler (1612–1680)
“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly,
nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the
scornful.
But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he
meditate day and night.
And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that
bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither;
and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”
—Bible: Hebrew Psalm I (l. I, 1–3)