Uh...hmm. Well, not much, honestly! It's a good system. The trains run on time, there are enough of them, they are clean, there is plenty of legroom even in second class. Honestly since the pandemic I haven't been on the trains much. I'm sure they probably have some kind of app or delivery meals that meet the train at the next station or something by now. The complaints are when the trains fill up and there aren't any seats. You can get standing room tickets for the same price as second class. But what do you expect on a packed train. I carry a tiny little plastic fold-up chair in my backpack for precisely this reason. People play their phones without headphones which is irritating. You can only hear that "cha-ching" sound effect from a slot machine so many times before you want to murder someone. The snacks other than the box meals suck, too. The beer is Tsingtao at best, and warm. The coffee is Nescafe from a powder sachet.

The meals are absolute crap though. I get the idea that someone's brother in Beijing got the contract and is living the high life in Canada off the proceeds. Here's what they look like, and they taste just as bad as they look. There's no reason it has to be this way.