A bus driver

Today was just any other day. I took a shuttle bus back to my Hall after lunch at Hall 16 because there's a 3+ hour gap to my next lesson, German.

I board bus C since it arrived first... this particular one was a lousy-looking bus ; there were much newer buses but they still use some really old buses. First-time users of the bus also have a problem: where is the button to press for alighting? There was this group of Chinese people who were unsure about where to press, so the friendly bus driver told them to press on this long "stripe" that stretches across ceiling of the bus on two sides. He continued to start his history lesson: “一九七五年用的，现在的巴士都没有了。每次那些人都找不到按哪里。。。 一九七五年我看你们都还没出生。。。 (*broken English* 1975 used one, now don't have buses like this. Everytime those people cannot find where to press... 1975 I think you all still not born yet...)”.

In fact, he asked them to press the stripe to test it. Then he pressed it himself (imagine sitting at the driver's seat and stretching your hand behind to press something on the ceiling). I was slightly amused lah.

When the Chinese eventually alighted, the bus driver began talking to me instead. Asking me whether my class ended at 2.30pm, which hall I stayed etc. He asked if he could drop me off earlier (I was the last person on bus) coz he wanted to go out of NTU back home to sleep... lol... I said OK, since it didn't make much of a difference anyway. Sometime before reaching the junction he asked me if I was Chinese (as in PRC Chinese), and when I said no he asked if I was Singaporean. When I said no, he gave up (Cannot be Malaysian meh?!?!). So I told him lah... then he asked which state... and I answered Johor, he said 新山啦 (JB lah).

Of course, I'm from Batu Pahat, which was what I told him later (ba2 du3, as we BP folks call it). He got all excited and said he was from Yong Peng (永平)! Haha... he mumbled so many things after that... about Bukit Pasir (白沙浮), gang fights in Panchor (!) etc... but I had to leave soon, so he said next time you board my bus you must call me "Uncle" (叫我一声“Uncle”), we go chit chat next time etc... and some stuff about being 同乡人(come from same village) etc...

Although this was just a small incident, I felt obliged to write it down in words (after not blogging for so long again). Why? It is incidents like this that make me miss my home so much, and the 亲切感 I get when I meet someone from my place when I am overseas can really make my day much more interesting. And I know this is a bit far fetched, but it also sets me thinking about the Malaysian Chinese "Diaspora". Which sets me thinking about myself, a foreigner in a foreign land, how would I chart my future?

...this line of thought now brings me to the movie I watched recently (Gubra). Hopefully I'll get to write about it one of these days...