A Chinese New Year Bus Ride (Part 3)
As the Chinese New Year of the Ox approaches, I think of other Chinese New Year holidays I celebrated. This excerpt concludes the Happy New Year of the Dog (1994) and is from my book, Memoirs of a Middle-aged Hummingbird, published in 2006.
And now I have left the family and am sitting in a bus to Hangzhou on a tiny, nursery school-sized stool squashed in between men polluting my air with their constant cigarettes. I had a ticket for a seat, but that meant nothing in this bus that swelled with those who pushed their way on or had guanxi, connections with the driver.
It was to be a two-hour ride, so I put my gloves on to grasp the cold bars between which I could balance myself as the bus swayed. I put on a facemask to help me endure the smoke. I felt my nose and throat and lungs filled with the mucous of a heavy cold and wondered anew why I put myself into such discomfort. How can China keep drawing me back for more physical abuse? Why do I still feel its pull on me after almost six years?
My Chinese friends tell me they can close their minds on long, uncomfortable bus and train rides. But my mind becomes activated and busily wanders fruitlessly from thought to thought. Chinese vacillate between courtesy and discourtesy to strangers. I have sometimes observed a loyal sense of camaraderie on long trips. On this bus, they take a little pity on young children and allow them to sit on the engine (which is inside the bus) cover between the driver and his scowling girlfriend who sits in the other front seat. She takes a young baby from its mother’s arms to sit with three other children all squashed in together.
Since it is Spring Festival, this little baby is dressed in a newly hand-knitted sweater and pant set that is basically blue with many other bright colors. The effect of a clown is accentuated by the clown hat and colorful pom-poms. As the Chinese get richer, the only child allowed to each couple becomes dressed more and more like a precious gift box. This baby registers a loud and tearful protest at separation from its mother, so another stool is placed nearby, the other children are squished together on the floor of the bus, and the mother and baby are reunited.
The bus driver turns on the radio full blast as though we are not all confined to one small bus. I put in earplugs, which I have learned from experience to carry in noisy Asian cultures. And so, on my little stool, with a cold filling my nose, a facemask covering my mouth and nose, and earplugs clogging my ears, I stretch out one cramped leg into a tiny crevice and feel bearably comfortable. Thus I ponder the chicken with legs trussed that has managed to escape from the pouch of someone’s bag. It is caught and ungently stuffed back into its little prison from which its head sticks out and it can eye the world for a short time before it will be on a plate. I experience a feeling of empathy with that chicken.
I try to remind myself not to forget how uncomfortable I have been on my many visits to China. But it doesn’t help. I know the pain of the hardships will eventually recede like the cold and cough congealing in my head and throat. I can bear it again because I am bonded to my many young friends here, and to this intriguing country that fascinates me.
Tags: Spring Festival in the Chinese countryside; buses in Ch, Travel
