Adventures on the Bus

Each day when I return home from school, I take the bus and occasionally I take the bus to school as well. Let me tell you, there is nothing like a window into Chinese culture than public transportation. And often I have such interesting things happen.... so much so that I going to start a new category dedicated to my adventures on the bus. This week I had two amusing happenings. Early in the week as took the bus home, I had my textbook out and was practicing writing characters. I was covering up the characters to see if I could write each one correctly. As I was writing, I noticed there were several Chinese standing near me watching me write. Now I must mention as an aside that many Chinese find it humorous and intriguing to see a foreigner writing characters. So as these people were watching me, one of the men pointed to one of the characters and told me that I had it slightly wrong. After closer inspection, I spotted my mistake. I thanked him and kept practicing. A little while later, he leaned over and showed me another mistake. I again thanked him and kept studying. When I looked up he was getting off the bus and I bade him goodbye. A few moments later, a women leaned over and showed me a small mistake. This continued for the rest of the bus ride home. I think a total of 4 different individuals helped me study. :-)

Another day as I was coming home, I got a seat in the back of the bus. I sat down by the window and since I was not really in the mood to talk (after just finishing one of my tests), I plugged in my iPod. Pretty soon the bus began to fill up, but even as the bus got full no one sat down beside me. Granted I am often the only foreigner on the bus and people have told me that I am the first foreigner they have ever seen ride the bus. But I was humored as there were people standing and no one wanted to brave sitting by the foreigner. I guess I have been known to do scary things like speak English. One man finally sat down next to me and then promptly fell asleep. Well, he at least appeared to be sleeping, but every few minutes he would peek at me from the corners of his eyes. It was all I could do NOT to laugh. I was talking about it later to some Chinese friends and one of the women confessed to me that if she got on the bus and saw a foreigner she would stand rather than sit next to them. But really, aren't we all suspicious or uncertain of people who are different than us? Just makes me think how I have reacted that way to someone in the US. And what a humbling realization that is.