Bus #10 and the Narcoleptic Whale

Some people spend their entire lives in pursuit of something.  Passionate or obsessive… call it what you will, you can’t deny that being in pursuit of something is kind of fun.  Ask Herman Melville.  In the past I’d never been one to set goals and chase things down but I’ve been trying to change that.  As our days in Vancouver whittle away, I’m more aware of my surroundings, taking in the scenes because it might be a long time before I make it back here.  Thank goodness for that attentiveness because tonight I was able to witness something that I jokingly set as a goal a couple years ago.  Yes folks, I found one of those great white whales of mine and I found it in familiar waters.  Today, while riding bus #10 (Southbound, Granville), I saw a white person sleeping on the bus! 

Big let down for you, right?  Let me explain.  This person was white.  And sleeping.  On the bus.  Not a white person passed out drunk or crashing down OD-style from a massive drug binge.  That I’ve seen more times than I care to count.  This person was actually sleeping because they were tired.  She was tired.  It was a she.  She climbed on the bus, took a seat, put her purse on her lap and proceeded to close her eyes and grab a little shuteye on her commute home.

I still don’t have you, do I?  Aside from the fact that they were both white, you don’t see why this was my Moby Dick.  Hmmm… that’s a poorly phrased sentence there.

Here’s a little back story for you.

I moved to China in 2007.  Valuing our lives and our safety, we elected not to drive and instead rode the buses around Yantai, the city where we lived.  It was a cheap and convenient way to get around.  Sort of the Michelina’s of the transportation world.  Riding the bus as much as I did, I had the opportunity to watch a lot of people.  They also watched me.  A lone, tall, scruffy looking white guy gets a lot of attention in Yantai. When I had to go anywhere, I always opted to nab a seat at the back of the bus.  Most of the time the rest of the passengers would stare at me and I’d stare right back.  Once they realized that I wasn’t going to do any tricks or burst into flame, they more or less ignored me.  Then they fell asleep.  Sitting up, sometimes crossing their arms, sometimes not, they would put their head down, rest their chins on their chest and just nod off.  Just like that!  There were days where I’d be the only one awake on the whole bus.  Just me and thirty Chinese people, riding the bus downtown to get some peanut butter from Walmart.

When we hit a bump their heads would gently bounce up and down.  My friend Adam said they all looked like Garfield bobble heads in the rear window of a car.  Bump: nod.  Bump: nod.  Sudden stop: shake head sideways.  It was hilarious to watch and to me it was an incredible spectacle.  I’d sit there amazed at how they dropped off, one by one, and how quickly they did it!  Even when I’m cozy and warm in my own bed it takes me a long time to get to sleep.  Not these folks.  They’d climb up the single step, drop in their one yuan bill, grab a spot to sit then take the express route to dreamland.  It amazed me.  Their voluntary narcolepsy was entertaining but I was also jealous.

I’m a terrible sleeper.  For starters, I drool like an infant when I sleep.  Like several infants in fact.  In the mornings Rowan likes to jump on the bed and curl up between Jenny and I.  She’ll nudge her way in and she likes to get on the pillows too.  Some mornings she’ll come to me and try to catch a few Z’s on my pillow but she almost always gets up as soon as she lays down.  Why?  Because my pillow is absolutely soaked in drool.  My pillowcase is like a moist towelette but without that pleasant lemon smell.  Rowan’s bad about it too.  She gets up and moves next to Jenny but she makes sure to shoot back a judgmental “what the fuck was that about?” look.  My dog, my sweet little dog who spends copious amounts of time chewing and licking at her genitals and butthole, is grossed out by me.

Another reason I’m a terrible sleeper is because I lose control of my body.  I spin around.  I spasm and jerk.  I babble incoherently and laugh to myself.  I sit up and look around with an angry expression on my face, then splash back down into the wading pool that is my pillow.  Don’t even get me started on the erections and night farts.  Simply put, I’m disgusting.  When you were a kid, did you ever have an elderly, foreign relative who suffered from Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and Tourette’s?  They’d be half out of it in their wheelchair or bed and when you got close they’d spasm and shout in some unintelligible language and make you spill your cup of juice all over the new cream coloured rug?  And your parents would make you go up and give them a goodbye kiss but they’d shoot their arm out and clutch you, pull you in close and with their head lolling back and forth, utter something sinister and confusing while their breathing their sour, hot,  milky breath right in your face?  Yeah, me neither.  But that would be a pretty good description of what I’m like when I sleep.

For that reason, even if I could fall asleep on the bus, I will never risk it.  Not on a public transit bus anyway.  A long travel bus, fuck yeah.  I’ll murmur and pop boners all I want. But to be able to just nod off on public transit?  AND to be able to wake up at your stop?  That’s like a low level superpower, ranking right up there with being able to choose the fastest line at the grocery store or knowing when to stop boiling your spaghetti so it doesn’t get too mushy.  Of course I’m jealous!  I could use a few extra Z’s in my day.

When we moved to Vancouver, we were pleased to discover that the city had a pretty good public transportation system.  We made use of it frequently, especially once we moved down to Marpole.  Our neighbourhood is right on the border of Vancouver and isn’t near most of the “fun” things.  The sign to welcome you to the city is just around the corner.  We are close to Richmond which is mostly made up of Chinese people, as is our neighbourhood.  Going to Richmond is like going to China.  Seriously.  We took the Skytrain to Richmond (only two stops!) because we wanted to go to a restaurant that we used to enjoy going to while in China.  We couldn’t find the place  and decided to ask some men who were walking down the sidewalk towards us.  They didn’t speak English.  Tried again, same result.  Only Mandarin.  Eventually we found the restaurant but that was after a long period of wandering around, trying to make sense of the Chinese characters on the signs.

Needless to say, lots of Chinese people ride the bus here.  There are some days where I feel like I’ve been transported back to Yantai.  A Yantai where there’s English and the beer is cold.  My usual work day?  I get on the bus, walk to the back, take a seat and start reading.  Other Asian folks get on, take their seats and then we take off down Granville.  After one or two stops, guess who nodded off?  Here’s a clue: it’s not me.  Two and a half years we’ve been here and that’s what I’ve seen.  Two years in China and that’s what I saw.  Five years in Saskatoon and that’s… not what I saw.  I didn’t ride the bus and there were nowhere near as many Asian people.  And the ones that were there probably drove.

This bus narcolepsy only seemed to affect Asian people, primarily Chinese.  This is a very multicultural city and I ride transit with people of many different nationalities but it’s only ever Chinese people taking the nod.

Until today.

I hate cell phones and will resist getting one for as long as is humanly possible.  I think they’re a blight on society but that’s a post for another day.  That said, when I spotted Moby Dick I wished I had a cell phone simply so I could take a picture and share this moment with Jenny and Adam.  Also, I realize that calling her Moby Dick is cruel and I only mean it in the sense that she was rare and, though I’m not obsessed with finding dozing whities, I was ecstatic to spot her.  She was a normal lady, late 20’s to late 30’s, wearing a green toque and carrying a big green purse.  She didn’t do anything wrong and was quite small.  Not whale-like at all.  She didn’t interfere with anyone as she slept.  Her doze was light and she bobbled her head as the bus bounced through the bumps.  When her stop was announced she woke up and got off the bus, thanking the driver before walking into the night.  I watched her go.  When I couldn’t see her anymore, my gaze fell back to her now empty seat.  I stared at it and smiled.

I noticed the continuation of the Chinese Bus Nod thing as soon as we moved here and remember jokingly thinking to myself that it will be a big thrill to see someone of a different nationality do it.  I didn’t think it would take so long but today… today was that day.  No, it’s not climbing Mount Everest or running with the bulls in Pamplona but what I witnessed gives me satisfaction.  I don’t care for the term “bucket list” but I suppose I can pencil this in then cross it off quickly.  I’m grateful to the Universe for that gift.  It would have been nice if one of the bigger goals would have been met today but those’ll come when they’re ready to.

Sometimes you’ve just got to cherish the little things.