chinatown v greyhound

I went to visit my brother and his wife in Boston this past weekend. For the longest time before leaving on this trip, I debated on whether to take the Chinatown bus, or the Greyhound.

	Chinatown Bus	Greyhound
Pros	cheap, fast (due to reckless speeds), flexible (there's a bus every hour, so you can just show up and buy a ticket)	You will probably survive the trip
Cons	tendency to flip over or catch on fire	more expensive ($25 v $15 one way)

I was traveling with MY, who is my sister-in-law's cousin, who usually takes the Chinatown bus. Even though she said "it's up to you", I knew what that really meant. I've had enough female friends to translate the words that come out of a girl's mouth. Last Friday, I got on the Chinatown bus.

The ride up there went without incident. Unless you count the person sitting in front of me who kept turning around to stare at us for who knows what reason. Because we were talking? Maybe if he wanted a silent ride he shouldn't have boarded a bus leaving from Chinatown.

On the way back, everything was going fine until all of a sudden, the person sitting directly across the aisle from us pulled out his DVD player. And hit play. With no headphones. And turned up the volume. I couldn't really tell what he was watching, I think it was some Chinese fashion show or something. But everyone on the bus could hear it. And everyone was pissed. He didn't get the hint when people started to give him dirty looks and pull out earplugs. Someone even asked him politely to turn the volume down. Eventually the person next to him offered to lend him a pair of headphones which amazingly he accepted.

While all this was going on, I was shocked at what was going on. Given, I'm an ABC, so I'm used to straddling two different cultures, but what would possess a person to do that? Usually I chalk it up to cultural differences. For example, people in Asia usually live in close proximity to each other (at least in the cities). So they can be forgiven if they crowd your personal space when they talk to you. I understand that. But playing a DVD out loud on a bus? If that's what everyone did in Asia, nobody would be able to hear anything! If the norm was everyone watched a movie on their portable DVD player while on bus rides, then everyone should have headphones, otherwise all the sound would mix together. Have you ever tried watching a movie while someone was talking to you? I have. The operative word here is "tried". So it just boggles the mind that someone would assume everyone would want to listen to his movie and he would lack the foresight to bring headphones.

(BTW, everything in law school is "somebody v somebody else". Thus, the title to this post. Yes, law school is making me less funny. Sad.)