A Year in Shanghai

The Wheels on the Bus

Well, I figured that it would happen sooner or later, what, with the way these bus drivers careen down the street, playing chicken with all the other vehicles on the road, and try to see how close they can get to the bumper of the bus in front of them when they stop...

Last week we got on the bus to go down to our local market. Most of the seats were taken, so a few of us sat and the rest of us stood in what I think of as a "surfer stance," clutching the hand bar for good measure. The bus pulls away from the stop, turns the corner and heads toward the next bus stop, and, for some reason, stops about 200 feet before the next actual stop. People get on and off, and our bus gets ready to pull away, when, BAM! ANOTHER BUS PLOUGHS INTO THE BACK OF OUR PARKED BUS!!!!! I was lucky I was hanging on because the whole bus lurched forward and everyone was completely stunned for a moment.

The bus driver got out and started yelling at the other bus driver in Chinese, but I'm assuming he said something along the lines of "You hit my bus!!" and some other choice phrases, and the other driver talks back, probably with "what were you stopped in the middle of the road for?" also likely accompanied by a few expletives of his own. Then, they both both got on their cell phones and started to yell at people on the other end.

Meanwhile, we're all sitting (standing) there, wondering what to do and making sure we're all ok. We all were perfectly fine, except for minor incidents: Lauren had jammed her arm, Wendy had broken her fan against her face (face is fine--fan is not), and her sun glasses, which were on top of her head, flew at the Chinese guy behind her, who was kind enough to return them to her after the melee. Everyone else on the bus was okay as well, but they looked much more used to this kind of thing than we were. The other bus had a cracked windshield, and probably some front-end damage, but our bus looked alright.

Needless to say, we got on another bus to the market, and we took a Taxi home (only because it was hot, not because the buses are scary, which they are a bit scary, but this is a rarity, I hope). As we were getting on the other bus, Kristin pointed out that if that had happened in America, we'd all be filing class-action lawsuits right about now....

Posted by goodrich at September 26, 2005 05:50 AM