Bus 51

I used to take route 51 everyday to go to school. This was my third year as a person in Canada and I was still learning English. The school bus was fun but the public bus was a whole other level of fun. Why did they suddenly stop offering school buses to kids aged 14? I don't know. But I loved hearing people's conversations on the very adult, very cool, bus 51.

The first time when I heard someone say that they couldn't stand someone talking loudly on the bus, I was shocked. I thought everyone loved those people. How else would you have a chance to get a window into other people's lives? How else would you learn English if you were a newcomer? And here they are, just offering it up selflessly, generously. They're heroes, really!

There was a man, who talked to everyone next to him, about his wife, and his daughters, who were doing very well, according to him. He might have been mentally ill and the wife and daughters might have been made up. Because I heard him talk on several trips to separate people and they all sounded a bit different. I could only make out the gist. But I still liked it. There were two teenage boys, who said things like “Ashley is hot!” and “Yeah but she got fat.” And “Yeah but she's still hot.” Ugh. I liked them less. There was a young woman, who I liked a lot! She was not much older than me, probably just out of high-school, who had spiky hair and eyeliners. Most people's conversations were like a bunch of indecipherable sounds jumbled together, with “the” and “and”and occasionally “Oh my God”making it out to my ears. Not her. She said full sentences with the clarity and simplicity of a crisp apple, as if she was tailor making it just for a kid in ESL. “My boyfriend never showers!” She'd say to her friend. “He doesn't even brush his teeth!” “Really?" Her friend would say. “Yeah! He never brushes his teeth! He just chews gum, puts on cologne, and then he goes to work!” I loved this. Despite its' grotesqueness. Understanding this made me feel like a real Canadian person. Somehow more Canadian than if I had finished reading Romeo and Juliet  from my grade 9 English class. Who cares about Romeo and Juliet, when you could hear about this woman's real life! She had a real boyfriend, she watched when he goes to real work! And he figured out how to not shower or brush his teeth. What a genius! In time, I would learn that putting on perfume and chewing gum does not a shower make. But I loved how innovative this was. I relayed this story gingerly to my mom. How could mom not love this?

Mom did not love this. She was disgusted. In fact, she was disgusted by everyone on the bus. She called the bus the “lowest tier of society, and some students”. I guess I was one of the “some students” among the lowest tier of society. But how could these people be bad? They thought of things that I wanted to say, and they just said them! If they were the lowest tier of society, then I must also be lowest tier of society, I'm just keeping all my low-tierness to myself. In fact, my low-tierness must be even lower because I couldn't even articulate them.

At that time, mom had just transitioned out of her well respected job of being a teacher in Beijing, to running a small convenience store in Hamilton (a city accurately nicknamed “the armpit of Ontario”). She held a bit of a prejudice against the bus folks for their armpitness. When we were in good old Beijing, she had never associated with people outside of her social circle. She never had to. We lived in a bubble of university educated professionals. But now, as immigrants, we were among the “lowest tier of society”, which included bus-riders whose boyfriends didn't shower. And mom didn't like this because mom's side of the family were a bit snobby. According to one of my great grandmothers, they had come from a weird line of people who may or may not have been related to an emperor. I was also told that our family had lost most of their wealth before the cultural revolution, due to a grand uncle who had a gambling addiction. In Beijing in the 90s, the decade that I grew up in, on the surface, society had no top, middle, or bottoms, it was just all one big soup and we were all swimming in it. But there was still a class structure, a murky one that people didn't want to admit to being a part of. Well, to be fair, they weren't even sure where they stood, exactly. If soup were to be frozen, the fat would float to the top, the veggies and gelatin would be in the middle and the noodles would be on the bottom. But nobody acknowledges this because the soup isn't frozen. I don't know, this metaphor is kinda gross. And I am actually not sure if that's how soup freezes. But anyway, regardless of what layer they were in that soup, my mom's side of the family believed they were the fat at the top. Even if was just in their hearts. So naturally, mom did not enjoy seeing herself as one being at the lowest tier of society. She resented this status, and she resented the bus folks. But mom was doing her best. She had a lot to deal with. And she's come around a lot recently, she even takes the bus now. But, I was doing my best, too! And, I was very down about her not liking the folks on the bus for their low-tieredness, because that meant she didn't like me because of my secret low-tieredness! But low-tier or not, “My Boyfriend Never Showers”is among some of my favourite English lessons of the 2000s. I hope everyone on the 51 is doing well.

My Idea of Class Structure in the 90s

1 A King

The 51 was like a chipper kid on his way to school, then the 1 A King is like if the 51 got fired a million times and then beat up by life and is just barely hanging on. It was extremely slow and had many malfunctions. I took this bus after our family moved to the east end of the city. Everyday, I rode it back and forth, sometimes twice, to my university. It took only about 25 minutes to get there by car, but the 1 A King took an hour. This was particularly stressful when I had miscalculated my timing, which was often. At those times, I hated the 1 A King! If only it were to just be faster, my life would be so much better. I'd thought. The 1 A King took no notice of my frustration, it would make absolutely every stop to pick up absolutely everyone. This included folks on wheel chairs and single moms with a baby stroller and two to three toddlers running abound. And every time it stopped, the 1 A King would slowly let out some gas, take its time to let the family on, carefully, one by one, wait for them to secure the baby stroller, and for the kids to all to get settled. “Oh My God!” I shouted. “Could you be any slower?? I'm going to miss my exam!” The driver was blissfully ignoring me, he slowed down, even MORE. “Okay. At least it's moving. Maybe I'd make it after all.” I'd try to calm myself. But, as soon as it had gained any momentum, we would hit a red light, and come to a screeching halt. And did I mention the 1 A King was also breaking down constantly? Once on a scorching hot day, it stopped in the middle of the street, after letting out gas for one last time. “Everyone! Get off the bus! This bus had broken down out of heat exhaustion!” The driver said, in typical Hamilton manner, which didn't believe in flowery language. He told you exactly what was happening, no “I'm sorry folks”or “My sincerest apologies” or anything of the sort. Everyone on the bus also broke down out of heat exhaustion. The whole city was breaking down out of heat exhaustion. “Damn it! I'm going to fail my class because of you!!!” I cursed. “Damn this bus! Damn this city! Damn my life! I'm gonna fail school and I'm never getting out of here!" Everyone just looked at me with a bewildered look in their eye, as if saying “What's she freaking out for?” My attitude is simply not one adopted by that the folks who took the bus in the middle of the day.

The 1 A King, breaking down out of heat exhaustion

King Street East

The street this bus ran through, King Street East, felt like an apocalypse of the 90s, that had never known the existence of technology. It's more like, technology never got there. I don't want to be mean, but that's how it felt in the 2000s! And I don't mean the part close to the downtown core, I mean further east, where it looks like it's no longer a part of modern civilization. Where it would go stretches without a working store in sight. The majority of the stores shuttered their doors, so it's full of boarded up windows and empty houses, and badly spaced, colourful signs that meant nothing. For example, there was a sign that said “K&S Jewelers Diamonds and Gold” but if you needed a jeweler, you wouldn't go inside because it didn't look like there were any jewelers. Who is K&S? And you didn't trust this place would have any diamonds and gold. And it's sad because nobody in years had bothered to take that sign down. Or it's hopeful because the owners still believed this could be in operation some day. Or, maybe they were operating something illegal in the back. The people who occasionally appeared, looked and behaved like they came straight out of a zombie movie. One time it was around 2pm in the afternoon, I was on my way to class, I was the only person on the 1 A King. At around the stop not too far from K&S Jewellers Diamonds and Gold, a woman came on, pushing a walker. She was extremely frail and gaunt, her tank top hanging off of her like a rag. The tank-top was gray. Her eyes were gray. Her whole body might have been gray. She struggled to get on the bus, and her walker was too wide to fit in between the two rows of seats. “Do you need help?” I shouted from the back. She ignored me. It seemed as if she wasn't even aware of my existence. I don't think she was aware of anything. Looking back, this was one of the situations where the young and able should've just stepped in and taken over, instead of keep asking if it was okay to help. But I didn't yet have the awareness. But to my surprise, her hickory stick arms were strong enough to lift up the walker in mid air. “Arrrgggghhhghh” she groaned. I stared in horror. What if her arms snapped? What if the whole thing crashes down? But surprisingly, she successfully got to the end of the row, holding the walker in mid-air the entire way, wobbling. After another “arrrrrrghgghghhgh”, she sat down in a seat not far from me. She and I shared the bus ride until she got off at a stop that looked equally like the end of civilization to the one she came from. Why didn't she just sit in the seat closest to the door so she didn't have to struggle? I don't know. She was very determined to go where she wanted to. I found this to be kind of uplifting. I'm glad to have met this lady. I hope she got to where she wanted to go.

The 1 A King is a good bus after all. It would pick up everyone, no matter how“low-tier”they were.