I've been up since before dawn, unable to sleep in this sticky heat.
I've been labouring at the computer on a variety of dull admin and writing tasks for 5 hours or so.
Then I try to buy myself some air tickets through Ctrip (usually love the site, but...). I get the unpleasant shock that airfares have more than doubled in price since the last time I flew anywhere within China. Then I get the even more unpleasant - well, deeply irritating - shock that Ctrip's website appears to have stopped accepting cash orders (although it does allow you to tick a 'credit card or CASH' option and then proceed through about five more screens before finally telling you that, NO, you can't pay with cash after all). So, I have to order my tickets over the phone instead. And it takes quite a while.
So, I am late setting out for work at lunchtime.
And then it suddenly starts pissing down with rain out of an apparently clear sky, and I get modestly soaked walking the few hundred yards up to the end of the lane.
This is shaping up to be rather A BAD DAY.
I reflect that my mood is probably not helped by hypoglycaemia: I haven't really had anything to eat all day.
I step into the 7/11 on the corner to pick up a Snickers bar and a can of Coke.
As I am exiting the store, a middle-aged Chinese man - perhaps seeking shelter from the rain; I make what allowances for him I can - dismounts from his bicycle directly outside, and leans it against the door.
Yes, I could have gone through a what-the-f***? dumb-show to urge him to move it. I could just have yelled at him.
But, you know, I was in kind of a grumpy mood. And I was IN A HURRY. And the door only opened outwards....
So, I just pretended I hadn't seen him, and proceeded to open the door at speed.
The bicycle fairly flew... carrying a good three or four feet through the air, clearing the flight of steps leading up to the shop door and landing in the middle of the adjacent bicycle lane (no serious damage was done, fortunately - either to it, or to any passers-by).
Ah, and this is the best bit.... the chap was shaping up to tear into me with a torrent of invective, but I fixed him with my most piercing 'And your point is WHAT?' stare, and he withered instantly, went all goofy and sheepish on me. (Well, perhaps he was just intimidated by the fact that I was at least a foot taller and 50lbs heavier than him, and had steam coming out of my ears...)
Yes, I am a bit of an arsehole sometimes. Sorry. But this parking bikes in stupid places - particularly across doorways - is one of my pet hates in this country. And you can't suppress the rage forever: sometimes, every once in a while, you've got to let the volcano blow its top (while doing your best to make sure no-one gets hurt).
I am, yes, ever so slightly ashamed of myself. But, boy, it felt GOOD.
2 comments:
Oh dear. Glad to hear that it worked out satisfactorily; I know many locales where an encounter like this would end up with one being followed by knuckle-dragging thugs, decidedly not to one's favor. Because, you see, one had besmirched the patriarch's honor, humiliated him, etc. (And never mind that he deserved it.)
I know I spend waaay too much time and energy trying to anticipate how some behavior on my part might inconvenience or discomfit someone else, so I can avoid (or at least reschedule, ha) that behavior. But clearly there's no such brain pattern disturbing the synapses over there.
I don't think there's much danger of a local mob kingpin getting around on a pushbike, JES. Not these days. He'd probably have an electric bike, at the very least.
Taxi drivers, oddly enough (perhaps because they're so often on the receiving end of foreigner stroppiness themselves?), quite often see themselves as champions of the oppressed and defenders against modern-day colonialist aggression. Any sort of argey-bargey in the street (I speak from observation, not direct experience), even a heated discussion, is likely to draw the attention - and possible kneejerk intervention on the side of the Chinese party - of some passing cab driver.
It often seems to me that among the Chinese there is not merely an absence of the habits of consideration (that we mostly take for granted in the West), but actually the presence of something opposite: a dim, subliminal, but rather astute awareness of likely inconvenience or irritation to others, and a perverse impulse to inflict it.
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