Beijing Bus

Beijing bus has its own flavor.

Literally...it smells bad, especially in winter. Shut windows and heating usually do well in magnify all the detailed smell of an unwashed pair of feet, unchanged clothes, body odor of freshly ate garlic, and if you have a nose for wines, you might smell out even more flavor than me.

I take bus no.639 everyday to work. Not being a morning person, i grumpily get out of my warm flat, work 5 minutes in freezing cold and wait for sometimes over 15 minutes for my bus. But i manage to stay in okay mood. Usually, it's when i step into the bus, i sense a surge of anger in me, and i start my daily rant.

Most of the Beijing buses kept the old style of a driver and a ticket seller while in other cities in China, you usually through 1RMB into a box and get on. Bus no.639 has a collection of the world's rudest ticket sellers. Rank the top, a lady in her 20s but judging from her temper, well into the worst period of menopause. The minute you step onto the bus, you're under her surveillance: walk to the back of the car, you're blocking driver's view...did you pay? yea, right, i didn't see that...you have to pay extra because you bring that big bag, no,no, 2 RMB, 1 is not enough...

China has made an effort to change the attitude of its public service. Back in the nineties, people beg to get any service. In restaurants, in banks, everywhere you go, people show you a stone face. It's a gradual change, you still go into banks and get cold reception, but walking onto bus 639 always make me think of the horrible old days when people were treat like shit, and being a ticket seller on a bus means immense power that you just have to show off that you can make people do things they don't want to.

The psychology to the ticket seller is intriguing. They have got to be the people who are least suitable to hold any power. A simply task of selling 1RMB worth of ticket have given them the ego of controlling the whole bus load of people, you wonder what they would do if given the task of selling 1 million Yuan worth of national debt. Unfortunately, i think they represent people who run this country.

It's a common thing when people get carried away when they've climbed from poor to rich. They show off their power and expect people to admire. China is like that, showing off the money and cannot accept any criticism. It's worrying if and when it's given too much power on the world stage.