the garrison show

to get from hong kong to xiamen, i took a bus. a 9-hour bus.

it was really cool, though, because you got to see a little bit more of china, and a completely different china, than just what’s in the cities. basically, china is poor. i’m talking broke-ass, do-we-have-any-food, get-up-and-work-on-the-farm poor. in between the handful of modernized cities, there’s just these villages with no-joke peasants working the fields. tractors? plows? no. try shovels, pickaxes and hoe’s. it’s sort of sobering to drive by this grinding poverty, especially coming out of hong kong where if the car that just passed you wasn’t a BMW, it was a mercedes.

i am embarrassed to say, this bus ride taught me that i am, at heart, an asshole. many of you will claim you’ve known that for years, but verily, it’s true. i’m waiting for the 7:30 AM bus and i buy some peanut m&m’s to pass the time. i pocket them for now and then eat them 30 minutes or so into the bus ride. it occurs to me to offer some to the old chinese woman across the aisle but, for no real reason, i decide not to. it’s better if i eat them all.

fast-forward an hour or so. the old woman is now peeling an orange. she’s about halfway done when she breaks off half the orange, and with no shortage of grunts and gestures, offers it to me. damn her! showing me up! i tried to graciously refuse, but she was adamant. i was afraid she might hit me. so i took the orange and ate it. delicious. shit!

fast-forward again another two more hours. we’re making our first food stop and guess who doesn’t have any yuan, the chinese currancy. did you guess me, the asshole? you’re right!! now, guess who shares her pistachios with me that probably cost 1/3rd of her annual income? correct, again - mother theresa sitting beside me! curses!! i was also the benefactor of an apple and half of this weird twinkie thing from a fellow i met on the bus who spoke english for business.

as you can see, essentially, jesus bitch-slapped me. so let this be a lesson. for you.