Chinatown Bus

For the last few days, I've been in Brooklyn visiting a good friend from High School. She offered a number of options for getting up there and back, and I, magically, misunderstood the fact that she only provided one link (the link for the Chinatown bus) as a recommendation. Oops.

Getting up there was quite easy: show up to Chinatown in DC, hop on bus, appear 5-6 hours later in NYC's Chinatown. Finding the subway line was also quite easy, helped by lyrics from a Regina Spektor song. A few stops down, and I was in Brooklyn.

The next two days were fun, relaxing, and a good reminder of why I stay in touch with my friend. Episodes with cockroaches (I'm convinced she has other people kill them so she's not reincarnated as one--she's Indian), calls to the police because of disturbance of the peace (her neighbours regularly play loud music on the front stoop past 1 am), and falafels made the visit.

But the most memorable part of the visit was probably trying to get the bus back to DC. We miss the 6.30 bus by a few minutes, and wait for the bus to come the next hour. It pulls up...nearly full. The five free seats quickly get filled, and two more stand empty. The women sitting next to the seat pretend not to understand a word. We get off the bus, assuming they are saving the seats. People with babies get on. They aren't allowed to sit in seats, as they are at the front of the bus and therefore deemed unsafe. Ugliness ensues.

Several more buses depart, but for Philly. People desperate to leave the city push to get on each bus that pulls up, as there is no system for queuing. Push, push, yell, yell. The woman at the station continues selling tickets, and also keeps saying that the next bus is coming in five minutes.

8:30; we've been there nearly two hours. A bus pulls up, and my friend and I put the system to the test. She's five feet tall, and more forceful than me. I deal with the bags, she pushes forward to get two seats.

The bus is full, she's on, and I'm outside. She calls to tell me to get my @$$ on the bus, as she is holding a seat for me. People will not let me, nor the man whose wife and baby are on the bus to get on.

Panic.

Bus driver comes forward, after I've yelled out (to no one in particular) to please let me on; my seat is on the bus. No movement, just blank stares. He points to man, says, "wife?" The man gets on. He looks at me. "Friend?" "Yes, yes, my friend is on the bus and has a seat for me!"

I get on.

People shoot me stares of death.

They have not been there for two hours like we have.

The ride home is punctuated by rudeness from the family seated around us; passive aggressive remarks and actual pushing of my friend occurred. Apparently one woman was mad at my friend for holding the seat for me. B, clever girl, asked the woman what she would have done if she were traveling with her family. "Hmfff" came the singular reply.

Sadly, that ride was also racially charged. So much of the bus ride proved that different groups of people have different ways of dealing with these things. Behaviour that's common in Asia is not tolerated by the non-Asian riders here. Several groups expected service, even though they only wanted to pay the $20 for the ticket. And me? I longed for timely, calm Swiss transport.

Yep. You read it here: I wanted order, timeliness, kindness. Foolish me for riding the Chinatown bus.