Right now I am on a bus in China. My wife and I are on our way to city number five on our speed tour of the Middle Kingdom. This is the, um, 'less cared for' bus we've been on so far and since I cannot sleep (for fear of being jostled out of my seat), I thought I would write.
The bouncing seat back, made for a person half my height, isn't the worst part of this particular vehicle. It's the horn. In China, the horn isn't so much the rude sign of anger it tends to be in the US. To us, hearing a horn blast is almost an audible middle finger. To them though it's just a way of saying 'I am here!'. And if you saw the way they drive you'd understand why the driver of our bus seems to feel the need to announce his presence nearly every time we pass another vehicle. He's doing it for our safety.
At least this is what I think is happening. One of the more frustrating things about traveling in other cultures is not knowing what everyone is saying. With the Chinese, it's often hard to even read their faces. So for all I know, our driver is a seething raging cauldron of dangerous anger. But I don't think so. I think he's just being the chinese version of a good driver.
Of course he's also still honking at everything that moves around us, so I'm going to focus on not being thrown out of my seat and try to ignore the fact that WE ARE HERE! WE ARE HERE! WE ARE HERE!
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