Despite living in Beijing and working as a ‘Foreign English Teacher’ I don’t intend to make my contributions to this blog a blow by blow account of life in China. I’m reluctant to write such a blog for two main reasons; firstly that there’s plenty of blogs on the topic of foreigners living in China already ( http://stopworryingandlovechina.wordpress.com being one of my favourites for those interested in) and secondly because I think I’d fall into the trap of serving up a day by day account, failing to offer anything witty or insightful. The aim of my contributions therefore is to carry on in the current style of the blog, i.e. offering the obscure and irrelevant thoughts of another ‘old man’ in his 20’s .
In complete contradiction to the above introduction my first entry will focus on a particular aspect of live in China: bus travel. For clarity it’s crucial to state that I’m talking about the loveable service buses which ply their trade within a town or city and not their despicable bigger cousin, the inter city coach. Everyone with an ounce of decency will be aware that travel between cities is a job for trains not buses.
Living in Shunyi, a suburb to the north east of Beijing, which is not currently served by the cities underground system (the extension of Line 15 to here is likely to be open within the next few weeks) I have spent a fair amount of time making use of the bus network. Journeys costing between 8 pence and 28 pence represent far better value than taxis (costing an extortionate £3 - £7 for equivalent journeys) for a tight git like me.
The shenanigans that are to be experienced on China’s buses are alluded to in the Wikitravel article for Beijing. Here a warning is given that ‘your driver is likely to prioritise speed over comfort so hold on tight.’ In fact it would’ve probably been more accurate to state that ‘your driver is highly likely to be an escaped lunatic, please have this in mind before boarding.’ Over the past few months I’ve become fully accustomed to travelling on buses that would considered dangerously over-crowded in many countries. It’s also no longer a surprise to see the bus driver attempt audacious undertaking manoeuvres. I now presume there is a problem if the driver fails to check that his horn is still working at least twice a minute.
Although adventure and danger are regular travelling companions it’s worth highlighting three experiences that went above and beyond the usual fun and games. The first comes from one of my first trips on the faithful 915 Express (running between Shunyi and the central underground station, Dongzhimen). Around an hour into the journey the driver became increasingly agitated at the amount of time it was taking to progress beyond a busy junction. The car in front’s inability to crawl forward when immediately given the chance appeared particularly irksome. After offering many salvos on the horn by way warning the driver decided to take matters into his own hands and shunted the car in front. Alas his logic, that a quick push would speed up matters, wasn’t to be. The debate often that follows a collision ensued in China, with a variety of passers by giving their two penneth as per usual. I decided walking the last part of the journey was probably the quickest option.
The second example is from a trip in the Haidian area of Beijing. Shortly after boarding I noticed that the conductor was making his voice heard even more than usual. It quickly became apparent that one of the wing mirrors was missing, and all important decisions were being made by the conductor leaning out of a window and issuing instructions to the driver. The conductor also took it upon himself to berate cyclists and pedestrians who strayed too close to the bus.
Finally, another example from the 915. A good friend living and working in the nearby city of Tianjin recently shared with me his theory that bus drivers are working on commission to get as many trips up and down the route done as possible. I have no way of knowing if this theory is true, but it would certainly explain the following actions. Not far into the journey the driver started shouting out to the passengers. Given my limited knowledge of Chinese all I could make out were the names of a few of the stops on route. As the journey progressed it transpired that the driver had unilaterally decided to re route the bus, and had no intention of stopping at the aforementioned stops. A brief public consultation took place when one passenger announced his desire to get off at one of the removed stops. The rest of the bus sided with the driver, preferring the 10 minute short cut, and the lone passenger had to alight early and wait for the next bus (fortunately for him they run every 5 minutes).
To finish – a completely unrelated joke. Why does Karl Marx like fruit tea? Because proper tea is theft.
No comments:
Post a Comment