Chapter 5: The Chinese Way
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The taxi dropped us off in Boston?s small but perfectly formed
Chinatown. The ten minute taxi ride had cost us more than the 4 hour
bus trip to NYC which was a bargain at $10 each, single way. Now, for
that sort of money you might expect a no frills experience. That’s
exactly what you get. You also get additional Chinese downright
rudeness. There were obviously far too many people for the bus and
shouting matches were breaking out all over the place.
The most aggressive of the shouters was the bus company rep. She was
screaming at several passengers who wanted nothing more than to join
their wife/mother on the overcrowded bus. Several people were thrown
off. And I do mean thrown off. A second bus arrived and we all
managed to get on. Well, Ricardo and I did but several people were
left stranded, but another chaotic crowd were already gathering for
the next, 8am, bus [they run every hour during the day].
“She’s nice” observed Ricardo as the woman I christened The Wicked
Witch Of The Far East issued threats to sit down to those who had made
it onto the bus.
Another employee snatched our tickets. The driver
set off and we tried to get a few more minutes sleep. 4 hours and
several annoyed passengers later [I had managed to get to sleep, and
as Ricardo has noted I snore, not badly, but very well indeed] we
were in NYC. The arc that the bus takes in gave us great views of
t’big apple.
All the familiar landmarks except two. Damn.
Chinatown NYC is a much bigger proposition than, well just about any
Chinatown outside of China itself. Bustling would be an apt
description. Landing at 11.10am we headed into Golden Dragon Boat
Café & Bakery Inc. Despite the waitress having extreme difficulty
with our accents we managed to obtain two huge coffees.
A Chinese man joined us at our fixed table seating and Ricardo asked
him if he knew any place to drop turtles off. He didn’t. Outside we
looked for a phone, but were drawn to the sight and sound of a huge
truck on the other side of the road mounting the pavement and causing
the street lamp it hit dead centre to move from a 90 to 45 degree
angle.
Police were soon on the scene and people went back about their
business, including us.
Several pay phones later and we still had not got through to Jane, a
friend of mine who was to meet and ferry us around whilst here for
the day. Eventually I had to ask a young Chinese man to show me what
to do. Seems that some of the phones go through exchanges in god
knows where and that area codes and all manner of prefixes need to be
entered before you can get through.
“Hey Jane, we’re here!”
“I’m in the car, making my way through Brooklyn. I’ll see you at Casa Latina
in 40 minutes” she replied.
From later experience, had I known that Jane was driving I might have
held back that call. It’s hard enough driving around NYC, especially
if you are Jane, without the added distraction of a phone call to
handle.
We grabbed a familiar Yellow Cab and told the driver to head for Casa
Latina on, er, “hang on I’ll just make a phone call….Jane , hi us
again……”
Our driver was from Bangladesh and had lived in NYC for the last 7
years. He was very nice and lent us his mobile to call Jane with. Now
that’s something that no British taxi driver would ever do. He was
tipped well for his efforts.
Our accents were still causing us difficulty. At one stage the driver
asked us if we were Russian. “No mate, from the North of England” I
replied on our behalf, even though strictly speaking Ricardo is from
the Midlands [but ask Marco or Huck and they’ll tell you that
Nottingham is, for Londoners, oop North]. He nodded adding after a
long pause, “I mean are you in a hurry?”. Oh, rushing! No, we were
not rushing. Despite this he too drove like Michael Schumacher, with
added swerves into what through brute force would become spaces or
gaps in the traffic.
We passed several hundred bikers going in the opposite direction.
Maybe the Wicked Witch Of The Far East had upset a fellow biker and
they were about to issue some pay back?
I felt sorry for the bikers, they had no chance.
By noon we were on 116th Street, El Barrio. The weather was great,
around 65-70 degrees and we were no longer tired at all.
“Man, we’re in El Barrio” exclaimed an observant and highly excited
Ricardo to an equally excited slap. After running into the first
music store we saw [to our knowledge there were no travelling Belgian
Latin Jazz musicians in there], we headed out for Casa Latina……