Bus Stop Crazies
There are always international students waiting at my bus stop. I find this to be odd, because Winthrop (my town) seems like an out-of-the-way place for a young Japanese person to come live in for a semester. It isn't near a university (which is already odd for Boston) and it is not on the subway line. Instead, one must get off the subway in East Boston and take a shuttle from there into our town. Nevertheless, every day when I get out of work and arrive at the bus stop, there are invariably several foreign students already waiting. Japanese kids are probably the most numerous, their concentration divided between their books and electronic translators. Arabic students also make up a decent contingent, though they usually congregate in small groups where they talk and laugh loudly in their native tongues. But on any given day, you might run into Italian, Frenchman, or Argentinian students waiting for the ride to town.
Often, I can't help but watch these students are they sit, out of place, miles away from home. I wonder what they are thinking and what their experiences have been like since arriving in the USA. I marvel at how the Japanese students, though very polite, are not embarrassed in the least to ask someone to scoot over and make room for them or to close a window on the bus or to get directions. I feel awkward doing some of those things sometimes, and I am a native english speaker. I usually avoid contact with strangers, and when I can't... I try to minimize the amount of time I spend in doing so. If someone starts to talk to me on the subway about the weather, I quickly try to wrap up the conversation. Being an introverted and a private person, I am always amazed by those people who enjoy spontaneous conversation with strangers. The impulse to make small talk with a person you don't know seems so foreign and illogical that it seems... well, insane. To be fair, the people that most often start random conversations with me actually are a bit gone in the head. Unfortunately, those kinds of people also congregate at my bus stop.
The usual suspect is a man in his mid 40s. He is tall and stocky and nothing seems off on first glance. I first noticed that something was off when he hailed me one day. I was on the back of a crowded bus, lost in my thoughts and listening to my ipod, so it took me a while to take notice of the movement of someone waving energetically at me from the front of the bus. Because I didn't really know who he was, I did that thing where you look around to try to figure out who they are actually trying to wave to, but his gestures were clearly directed at me. My mind raced as I tried to figure out who the heck this guy was. I was still relatively new to Winthrop; I didn't have friends there, certainly none that looked like him. He was still waving. I slowly raised my hand and waved back. Did he work at the pizza shop I had eaten at a few times? Maybe he was the guy that owned that videogame store... "How's it going?" he yelled across the bus. Embarrassed, both by the outburst and by my ignorance of the person talking to me, I gave him a silent thumbs up. I rode out the rest of the bus ride racking my brain trying place him. We both got off at the same stop. "How's it going?" he asked again.
"Good" I responded, trying to seem casual.
"Do you know who I am?" The dreaded question.
"I'm sorry..." I responded sheepishly, "I've met a lot of new people lately."
"I'm John" he said thrusting his hand into my face. I shook it.
After a few awkward minutes, I was able to extricate myself from the situation and head on my way still unsure of who "John" was and what I was supposed to know him from. It wasn't until I saw the same scenario played out on unsuspecting victims time and time again that I finally realized that John isn't quite right in the head. I tried not to laugh as I saw him ask a confused man, "do you know who I am?" and then wrap in him in a hug upon the man's exit off the bus. I watch him confuse at least one person a week.
The other day it occurred to me to wonder if these two different bus stop groups had ever met before. I would like to see John engage a confused Japanese kid with limited language skills and see how it goes. If it took me a while to figure out that John is a few fries short of a happy meal, it may take a foreign student forever to really get what is going on. In fact, they may just think, "wow, Americans are so friendly!" Of course, this just makes me think about all the times that friends have come back from abroad talking about the friendly people they met here and there, or the times that I also ended up in conversations with friendly natives while traveling. Who knows? Maybe all along travelers have just been hanging out with the town crazies unwittingly.
Often, I can't help but watch these students are they sit, out of place, miles away from home. I wonder what they are thinking and what their experiences have been like since arriving in the USA. I marvel at how the Japanese students, though very polite, are not embarrassed in the least to ask someone to scoot over and make room for them or to close a window on the bus or to get directions. I feel awkward doing some of those things sometimes, and I am a native english speaker. I usually avoid contact with strangers, and when I can't... I try to minimize the amount of time I spend in doing so. If someone starts to talk to me on the subway about the weather, I quickly try to wrap up the conversation. Being an introverted and a private person, I am always amazed by those people who enjoy spontaneous conversation with strangers. The impulse to make small talk with a person you don't know seems so foreign and illogical that it seems... well, insane. To be fair, the people that most often start random conversations with me actually are a bit gone in the head. Unfortunately, those kinds of people also congregate at my bus stop.
The usual suspect is a man in his mid 40s. He is tall and stocky and nothing seems off on first glance. I first noticed that something was off when he hailed me one day. I was on the back of a crowded bus, lost in my thoughts and listening to my ipod, so it took me a while to take notice of the movement of someone waving energetically at me from the front of the bus. Because I didn't really know who he was, I did that thing where you look around to try to figure out who they are actually trying to wave to, but his gestures were clearly directed at me. My mind raced as I tried to figure out who the heck this guy was. I was still relatively new to Winthrop; I didn't have friends there, certainly none that looked like him. He was still waving. I slowly raised my hand and waved back. Did he work at the pizza shop I had eaten at a few times? Maybe he was the guy that owned that videogame store... "How's it going?" he yelled across the bus. Embarrassed, both by the outburst and by my ignorance of the person talking to me, I gave him a silent thumbs up. I rode out the rest of the bus ride racking my brain trying place him. We both got off at the same stop. "How's it going?" he asked again.
"Good" I responded, trying to seem casual.
"Do you know who I am?" The dreaded question.
"I'm sorry..." I responded sheepishly, "I've met a lot of new people lately."
"I'm John" he said thrusting his hand into my face. I shook it.
After a few awkward minutes, I was able to extricate myself from the situation and head on my way still unsure of who "John" was and what I was supposed to know him from. It wasn't until I saw the same scenario played out on unsuspecting victims time and time again that I finally realized that John isn't quite right in the head. I tried not to laugh as I saw him ask a confused man, "do you know who I am?" and then wrap in him in a hug upon the man's exit off the bus. I watch him confuse at least one person a week.
The other day it occurred to me to wonder if these two different bus stop groups had ever met before. I would like to see John engage a confused Japanese kid with limited language skills and see how it goes. If it took me a while to figure out that John is a few fries short of a happy meal, it may take a foreign student forever to really get what is going on. In fact, they may just think, "wow, Americans are so friendly!" Of course, this just makes me think about all the times that friends have come back from abroad talking about the friendly people they met here and there, or the times that I also ended up in conversations with friendly natives while traveling. Who knows? Maybe all along travelers have just been hanging out with the town crazies unwittingly.
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