Reason #21 Why I Love Chinar

(slash why I felt oppressed by its faceless bureaucracy my entire time there)

 

For the easily confused, let me explain that I am not in Chinar right now.  I'm in Taiwan.  Yet this story is about Chinar, not Taiwan.  You got that?  I heard this from one of our greatest family friends.  She was on a ten-hour bus ride to Beijing, and about eight hours into the ride, traffic halted.  For a very long time.  So much so that passengers and drivers alike got out of their vehicles to relieve themselves and chat.  And cuss.  For a very long time.  Our friend said that they had tried to hold the flow in in the hopes of not having to use any public restrooms between lunch and Beijing, but as the afternoon wore on, they started feeling miserable and traffic still wasn't moving.  Her and her friend were teh only two people who didn't get off the bus to pee on teh side of the road so finally, the bus driver turned to her and asked, "Miss, how badly do you have to go?"  And let her use the lavatory in the back of the bus.  Which was apparently locked the entire ride.  All the other passengers had to just find a spot along the highway, our friend inspired special pity.  Soon after, the sun settled down and the toll workers packed up and went home.  That's right.  Buses, cars, and people were all still jammed along the road, but the highway workers, assuming that their work was done (if no one moves, what's there to collect?), left for the night.  Around dinner time, our friend noticed that people all around her were digging into bowls of instant noodles.  "Strange!  How did they all come prepared?" she wondered, "what are the chances that everyone packed noodles?"  She soon found the answer when she heard the call of noodle vendors walking along the highway.  The traffic problem is apparently so regular and prevalent outside of Beijing that there are regular food vendors that walk along the highways, selling nourishment to weary travellers.  These people's livelihood depend on traffic to be so backed up that people literally stand still for hours.  At one point late in the night, amidst much ruckus and complaining and patronizing between passengers, it was announced that everyone should go to sleep because they weren't going anywhere.  And so people got back into their cars and buses and tried to sleep.  Around 1am, traffic started moving inch by inch, and around 4am, which was about 12 hours later than expected, our friend finally arrived in Beijing. Stories like that make me grateful that my ridiculous commute is 'only' an hour and a half long.  And that the very, very worst traffic only adds forty-five minutes to any drive instead of twelve God-forsake and bathroom-less hours.

 

Conversation highlights along the way:

 

Friend: So what happens, say, if a person has a heart attack in this traffic?

Local 1: Sucks to be that person.

 

 

Local 2: Socialist state, my foot!  Look at this mess.  These people ought to be lined up and shot.