Fuddland

Unlike a lot of the foreigners living here, who either hop in taxis or buy themselves a nifty scooter or electric bike, my primary mode of transportation is the public bus, which I take to and from work every day. It’s a pretty rare sight to see a foreigner on the bus—so much so that I am as guilty of gawping at any that get on as much as the locals do [but being careful not to make the kind of eye-contact that suggests that just because were both born abroad that somehow means we should become friends]. Taxis are reasonably-priced and, unless it’s pouring with rain or between five and six o’clock in the evening, are readily available almost anywhere in the city, but you really can’t beat the bus for value for money: one or two yuan [depending on the bus number and whether they have turned on the air conditioning] no matter how far you’re travelling—that’s less than 10 or 20p at the current exchange rate.

But despite the money factor, it has to be said that my daily journey is usually my most stressful part of the day. I’m regularly stuck fast in a ridiculous traffic jam that is usually simply due to the vast majority of drivers [including the bus drivers] lacking the concept of “give way”: any attempt for cars to enter the stream of traffic from a side street, or perform a U-turn, is not met by patient fellow drivers halting for a few moments to allow the car to complete its maneuvering. No, the drivers [and cyclists] simply try to continue on their way, inching around the car on either side, crossing over into the oncoming-traffic lane and being met head-on by a stubborn vehicle whose driver also isn’t going to do something as courteous as to slow down to prevent the impending stand-off. This cues excessive and useless use of the horn until somebody finally acquiesces, backs up a quarter of an inch and the jam magically disappears.

It boils my blood and drives me bonkers to watch, helplessly, these situations unfold, so why do I continue to use the bus instead of investing in a bike? The answer is in the question: it’s really to try to develop a more tolerant attitude to situations beyond my control. By boarding the bus, I know it’s quite likely something will happen that will have me rolling my eyes in exasperation, but this is, if I’m honest, just me wishing that the world worked exactly like I think it should, and it’s probably a good idea if I try and get used to the fact that that’s not likely to become a reality, so I should try and meet it halfway. The spoiled little children that happily occupy an empty seat while their doddering grandparent stands—hanging onto the handles for dear life as the driver weaves around cars that dare to drive somewhere close to a reasonable speed—are not really acting insensitively: the grandparents insist. Is it any wonder that many of them grow up into the surly inconsiderate teens that don’t think to offer their seats to elderly passengers?

One thing that has been puzzling me recently is the attitude to a rain-splashed seat. It’s been raining here pretty much continuously for the last month or so, and it’s inevitable that sometimes the plastic seats on the buses are going to get wet due to an open window. Nobody [not even me] likes to sit on a wet seat, and it’s quite amusing to watch a newly-boarded passenger flit from seemingly empty seat to empty seat, recoiling from each one like it’s a venomous snake about to pounce when she sees that the reason no-one is sitting on it is the fact that it’s got a few drops of water on it. [Note: I say “she” but it is just as likely to be a bloke.] When all options have been exhausted, she will make a song and dance about taking out a tissue and wiping the seat dry—struggling not to put whatever bags she is carrying onto the ground of course, knowing that it’s quite probable that someone has either hacked up a wad of phlegm or that a toddler has urinated freely onto the floor at some point earlier in the journey. So there she is, desperately trying to keep her balance as the bus continues to careen in the aforementioned manner, with her heavy shopping in one hand, wiping down the seat with the other until it is finally deemed dry enough to sit on.

Now here’s the bit I really don’t understand: should an occupied seat next to her become free, if no-one else immediately moves to sit on it, she will take her wet umbrella and place it on the empty seat. I simply cannot for the life of me fathom this behaviour: she’s just gone to considerable effort to make a seat dry enough for her to sit on, and then she goes ahead and makes another seat wet, so that some other unfortunate soul has to go through the same rigmarole that she just did.

The only upside of it all is that watching this performance play out in front of me distracts me from the fact that we’ve been stuck at the same point in a traffic jam for the last fifteen minutes.

#1

srh | 2009 / 03 / 12 – 19:56

Argh! Just reading that has made me feel frustrated and angry on your behalf. Why can’t people just behave the way we want them to?!

#2

David | 2009 / 03 / 13 – 09:35

Re #1: Hooray, I’m not the only one after all! :)

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