An Appetite for Adventure

You can take the girl outta New York, but you can’t take the New Yorker outta the girl.

Today, while zooming along on my handy-dandy electric bike — you can’t begin to imagine how much I love this thing unless you own a scooter or a motorcycle yourself — when the car putting along in front of me suddenly veers into a left turn. Now, these scooters aren’t slow, and a crash could be pretty nasty. Nearly plowing into the car for lack of warning, I slammed on my brakes and screamed at the top of my lungs:

“YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?! WHERE THE HELL DID YOU LEARN HOW TO DRIVE! USE YOUR FUCKING BLINKER! JESUS CHRIST!”

Recovering from my outburst, I realized that 1) everyone was looking at me (even the driver, now stopped, was gawking slack-jawed and wide-eyed) and 2) no one understood a word I said.

The was my third, and most explosive yet, “New York Moment.” I’ve named these little incidents such because they:

A) have no place here in Beijing where no one speaks English
B) come from a place so deeply ingrained in me its almost second nature
C) were distinctly gleaned dealing with all the bullshit an average New Yorker has to deal with every day and night

The first time I experienced this unexpected outpouring of antagonistic emotion involved a couple cutting in front of us right as we were hailing a cab during rush hour. We had been trying to nab a cab for 30 minutes and were already late to dinner. I stuck my arm in front of them and said, “Eh! What do you think you’re doing?!” Luckily, they backed down. Apparently New Yorker rage transcends linguistic boundaries.

The second time, I employed my friend Emily, also a former New Yorker, to great effect. One of the biggest cultural differences between China and the West is the idea of “lining up.” Quite frankly, this idea is lacking in China. Though I must admit, things are SO much better than my last Beijing visit in 2001. It is rare to see an all out free-for-all these days. Regardless, sometimes line-cutting becomes a problem, especially in crowded situations, like taking the cable car down from Xiang Shan, a mountain hike that is pretty darn chilly. As we rounded a corner, an old gentleman pushed pass us in line. Then another. Then a woman, an old lady, a child, another girl, etc. Everyone was making a break for it! It was freezing and this was so.not.fair. So, as another woman started to rush past, I turned around and let rip, “Nononononobubububububububu!”

You see, Chinese doesn’t really have a word for “no.” There’s “bu shi” which means “is not,” and there’s “cuo” which means “wrong.” But there’s no plain-and-simple “NO!” Hence, I employed the “bububububububu.” I think she got the picture, nevertheless. Problem was that her friend was one of the people that had pushed her way through. Every time we rounded a corner, she tried to make a break for it. But Emily flung her arms out to each railing along the cattle-herd style line. I started to feel badly, but we both decided if she wanted to be with her friend so much, her friend should just come back to be with her in line. Eventually, we couldn’t hold her anymore as we got to the front. It wasn’t a big deal. It was more the principle of the thing and preventing the rest of the line from stampeding towards the front.

These moments are few and far between. And I’d like to keep it that way. The people of China have been wonderful to me, and I want to provide a positive image of Americans and New Yorkers. That said, it does feel damn good to let a big old, “WHAT THE FUCK?!” fly every once and a while. Ah, New York, I miss the hell outta ya.