Sitting on a hot tour bus in Baltimore traffic at 4 a.m. Monday morning, my weekend getaway to New York City felt more like a hangover’s nightmare than a commute back home. But after getting off the crowded bus back home in Raleigh, I never thought I’d appreciate the lesson I learned from commiserating with the animated passengers of the Oriental Pearl Express.
Traveling to New York City is not an expense I usually budget into my college-student finances, so taking the cheap way out, I decided to catch local shuttle to Chinatown-the Oriental Pearl.
After paying for $120 for a round trip, I wasn’t expecting luxury, but when I got to the bus stop I knew I was in for an adventure. Well, it wasn’t quite a bus stop. Right across Buck Jones Road from Grand Asia Market in Cary stands a lonely Texaco station with a few broken folding chairs-my launch pad to NYC. I took the Oriental Pearl Express redeye at 1 a.m. to get to the city by noon for a tour of New York University’s graduate programs, but in the end, I think I learned more from the multilingual, multicultural bus ride than the fluffy orientation to graduate studies I couldn’t afford without loans.
At the makeshift bus stop, I met two Latina exchange students from N.C. State, who were having difficulty communicating with the Chinese bus driver. After filtering through broken English for both parties, I was able to practice some good Spanish, my second major, and brush up on clear verbal communication in English. The hectic interpretation jolted my adrenaline, so at about 3 a.m. when the couple behind me started fighting about each other’s love affairs, I was awake to experience it all. As a student journalist, I made sure to take note the most colorful of verbal exchanges, including my favorite, “If we were in an actual serious relationship, I would stab you.” The bickering lasted until we got to the Lincoln Tunnel.
The trip back to North Carolina wasn’t a calmer experience. As I arrived 30 minutes early at the bus station in Chinatown, a coned off section of an undrained Manhattan street, I was at the end of the line for the bus to Raleigh. The bus stop, full of working class families, Latino laborers and stingy backpackers, seemed like the historic New York I learned about in elementary school-full of poor laborers and those hoping to achieve the dreams of riches and happiness. A New York in sepia tone, built on the broken backs of the workers of industrialization.
The bus ride back was not comfortable by any means-it was hot, smelly and stuffy-but I it was also enriching. It was more eye-opening than the tour of the distinguished halls of one of the best schools in the nation, I’d argue. I was able to interact with people I would have never met before-people of different ethnicities, backgrounds and folkways-and that perhaps was the most enlightening experience I encountered. Nevertheless, I’m flying next time.
