Travelling Round

Friday 14th March 2008

In a taxi with Grace, Koko and Fiona on the way home from Tam's gig at a coffee shop. Koko asked if any of us could drive, and it turned out that none of us could. Shortly after this, we came to a red traffic light, when, without warning, the taxi driver opened the door and got out of the car. He walked to the front of the taxi and looked at it, then did the same, wandering to the back of the taxi. Meanwhile, we were laughing that he'd heard none of us could drive and so felt no threat that we'd drive off with his car if he got out. When he got back into the driver's seat, it turned out that he was checking if the head-lamps were working, as there's a fine if there isn't.

Tuesday 15th April 2008

Esther came to visit for a couple of days. The visit was short and we spent most of the time just catching up and wandering about town. Anyway, this morning, we went to a tempe and had a wander round. She wanted to see a temple of some sort, and we asked around a bit, but got conflicting directions (or were told there were none nearby). After lunch, I had a look at a map and saw that there was a temple, but not being entirely sure how to get there, decided a taxi might be our best bet. The map said that there was a Taoist temple in Wen Hua Park, so we got in a taxi and asked to go there. The driver started chatting away, and asked why we wanted to go there since there's not much to see. I replied that my friend wanted to see a temple, and I saw on the map that there was a temple at this park, at which he responded that there wasn't. "Oh?" I replied, "isn't Ching Yang Tang there? My map says there's a temple there." After some discussion, it turned out that it's not Ching Yang Tang, but Ching Yang Gong, and I just didn't know that vocabulary. Fair dos. Anyway, he started asking where we're from and what we're doing here, and when I said I'm studying Chinese, he asked me where, and then said my Chinese is pretty good. About two minutes later, we stop at a traffic light and there's another taxi in the next lane. Our driver shouts over to the other driver, "Hey, I got a couple of foreigners in my taxi - they want to go to Ching Yang Gong and asked for Ching Yang Tang! Hahahahaha!!!!" Funny that, good Chinese!

Wednesday 16th July 2008

Low thirties. It could be warmer, but thanks to the last two days of rain, the weather is bearable for a morning of shopping. Avoiding the rush hour, I decide to leave the flat around 9am. Although I get on a stop earlier than usual, the bus headed into the city is already packed. I can barely get my foot onto the bus let alone get onto it. The driver shouts out something in the local dialect which I can't understand. An old man takes his foot off the step on the bus and rushes towards the back door and gets on the bus. I follow his lead. It's not much more spacious. I manage to find a space on the bus, balancing myself, left foot on the floor of the bus, and right foot on the step at the back door. There's barely space on the rails for me to hold onto, but I figure that there are enough people (at an uncomfortably close proximity) to hold me up for the duration of my journey into the centre of the city. Thankfully, this bus has air. Twice the price, but for weak air conditioning, it's a sacrifice that I'm willing to make.

Twice the price... having got on the back, I've yet to pay my bus fare. Now, in any other city, this wouldn't have been an option. But here, you may be pick pocketed, you may be cheated when you barter at a store, but when it comes to bus fares, this is the most honest place in the world. When the bus is crowded to overflowing and movement is impossible, bus cards and cash fares are passed from passengers at the back to the front. Had I still been in London, my Oyster card or two pound coin would probably have been pocketed by the first person I handed it to. Not here. Cash is passed to the front and ends up in the fare box. IC cards are passed forward, swiped, and make their way back to their owners. I struggle to reach into my bag to get my IC card without hitting or elbowing too many people around me, and in broken Mandarin, ask someone to pass it to the front.

A few heads turn sensing a broken, foreign accent and I wonder if this might be someone's chance to keep my IC card (though if no one asks, then the chances of them believing there are aliens in space will probably be greater than their believing there's such a thing as Chinese people overseas). But a moment later, it's being passed back down the bus and into my hands. First trial over. Now I just have to do my best to keep my balance for the next half hour or so and not get pushed off the bus at each stop.

Within a couple of minutes, we hit a traffic jam. The blaring horns, incomprehensible chattering and the sound of the bus' television becomes a mesh of noise that washes over me. I look out onto the street and wonder at the miracle of life, as pedestrian after pedestrian crosses the road, navigating numerous lanes of cars, taxis, buses, lorries, swarms of bicycles and yet still manages to survive. I and the other forty-something passengers on the bus however, don't seem to be going anywhere.

As my eyes wander, I notice that every now and again, there are patterns painted on parts of the road. Just outside our bus, there is a rectangle that has been outlined with yellow paint, and the same yellow fills the rectangle with a sort of cross-hatch. Not far from it, there is a sequence of white horizontal stripes painted from the side of the pavement, travelling across the road and finishing as it reaches the pavement on the other side of the road. The stripes are all the same size and are equally spaced out by black stripes created by the tarmac on the road. Why are they there? They seem to have no practical function. Vehicles and pedestrians alike stop or move across these painted patterns as they please. Perhaps they are puzzles of some sort for those stuck in traffic jams...

With a sudden jolt, the bus starts up again and we crawl through the traffic once more. In England, if anything had made me feel capable of murder, it was travelling on overcrowded public transport at rush-hour. As I'm made aware of the bodies pressing against me on all sides again, that familiar feeling of frustration, annoyance and anger begins to surface. But my mind must concentrate on keeping balance. Trying to keep myself calm, I take a quick look around, reminding myself that everyone else is experiencing just as much discomfort as I am, and comforting myself with the fact that I'm relatively tall here. At least I'm not stuck under someone's armpit, and my head is just that much closer to the air conditioning vents, so I can better feel that cool (tar and carbonmonoxide-filled) recycled air. Just as the painted patterns are almost out of sight, memories from a distant land bring mysterious words to mind, like lyrics from a long forgotten song: box junction, zebra crossing, traffic regulations...