My story in China



Venturing out to tourist sites during a holiday can be risky business. You can be stuck for hours in traffic or, worse, get trampled.

I won’t forget one visit I made to the Great Wall. The human horde inching along the parapet would have made a canned sardine grateful for his spacious quarters.

And so it was with some trepidation last week that my wife and I hopped onto the subway and headed off to the Beijing Botanical Garden. On the bus from the station to the garden’s gate, I stoically refused to think about what we were about to face.

Surprise! The crowd inside was moderate, the skies were blue and many flowers were still in bloom. It was perfect. When the warm autumn day settled to dusk, it was time to board a bus for the return trip.

This is where things got interesting.

Everybody seemed to be leaving at once, and virtually every bus was crammed with people. Few stopped, and even the ones that did were hopelessly jammed.

Eventually, we managed to edge our way aboard a bus that was packed, bow to stern, but had a few cubic centimeters of breathable air. Somehow I ended up standing behind the driver, shoved there helpfully by the mass of bodies behind me.

I envied the sardine.

Well, at least we’re the last passengers, I thought. Silly me.

The driver stopped again, and yet more people shouldered in — I don’t know how. They flowed into the slimmest of spaces. Everyone aboard shifted to the rear and tried to become thinner. At the next stop, this routine was repeated, and two or three more passengers got in. People compressed themselves ever more tightly down the center aisle as the driver shouted instructions.

There were now 19 (!) people stuffed into the stairwell next to the driver. If you could have seen it from the outside, faces would have been plastered comically against the glass. Now it was clearly impossible to take on another passenger.

Silly me.

At the next stop a woman beat on the door, shrieking at the driver. Unbelievably, he opened it! She would not be denied. After several minutes of shouting and jostling, a couple of men winched the woman onto the step but couldn’t close the door. Finally, they forcibly pulled the doors shut around her. As the glass bulged outward, I worried the whole bus might explode like an overinflated balloon.

Proceeding to the subway station, the driver took the corners gingerly. The vehicle swayed, its high center of gravity threatening a rollover. But it stayed up.

When, thankfully, we stepped off, I was irritated. I told my Chinese wife that overloading a bus like that created a public safety hazard. She upbraided me gently.

“This is normal in China,” she said sweetly. “There are a lot of people here. He is a good driver, trying to help as many people as he can.”

When I continued my protest, she resorted to her wife voice: “If you don’t like it, go back to your own country.”

Ohh-kayy. End of discussion. I know when I’m beaten.


By Randy Wright