Friday the 13th Hijinx!

Friday the 13th is just one of those unofficial holidays that I just find so entertaining. I used to have a Lemony Snicket calendar (the author of A Series of Unfortunate Events) and there were two days he recommended that you stay inside and avoid people--Valentine's Day and Friday the 13th. We have movie franchises based around the holiday and now TV shows. Superstitions on broken mirrors, black cats, and walking under ladders. It is a holiday that bad things are just bound to happen to you... with a full moon added to it, this year's Friday the 13th was guaranteed to offer us a bit of hijinx!

I'll have you know that full moons mean two very different things depending on if you are talking to a Chinese person or an American. For Americans, full moons are scary. They are closely related to werewolves and other monsters. We have the iconic image of a witch flying across the full moon on her broomstick. The crazies are out on the full moon. For some reason, full moons have this frightening, negative image in our minds.  For the Chinese, it is the complete opposite. The time of the full moon is the safest time of the month because there is so much light. Many famous poets from Imperial China used the full moon as inspiration for love poems. It is also the time that family members who are separated by long distances can feel more connected with their loved ones.

So the fact that there was a full moon yesterday was spooky to me and Adam... and beautiful to our Chinese friends. Yay for random cultural differences!

Now nothing too exciting happened to us on our Friday the 13th over here in China. Adam and I watched a few  scary movies but it's hard to get scared at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. We went out to dinner with one of our friends, Arvin. And then we went to a cafe downtown to meet a bunch of our other friends for an end of the year party. Needing to get back to Cangqian before the buses stopped running, we decided to leave the party a bit early and head back home.

*CUE OMINOUS MUSIC*

We were pushing our way onto the overly crowded 332 bus (if you've been to China you know what that looks like) just as a girl started crying. When I say a girl, I mean a 20-something year old. When I say crying, I really mean whining (seriously, the whining over here drives me nuts, especially when it's coming from women my age.... If you've ever watched any dramas from Korea or Taiwan or even some anime shows, you might have an idea of what it sounds like). I ignored the noise like I always do on the bus and was about to put in my headphones to tune out the world for a bit when our friend Arvin translated for us and told us that someone had just stolen her cellphone.

Right away memories of Malaysia came flooding back to me (I had gotten my iPhone stolen on a subway with most of my photos from my Spring Festival trip on it) and I pulled my bag in front of me, checking for all the vitals (iPod, cellphone, wallet). I felt bad for the girl, I could understand how being robbed feels--it makes you feel so exposed and ashamed... violated even. Arvin continued to translate her whines for us and it turned out that this was the second time that it had happened to the girl. Immediately, my pity for her transformed into just frustration--what ever happened to "Fool me once, shame on you... Fool me twice, shame on me!"?!?!?!? 

Spring Festival tragedy... new iPod to replace the stolen iPhone

Despite that this was the second time that she had allowed herself to be robbed, she continued to whine and cry and made the bus driver sit at the stop while she attempted to search the people around her.

What should be a 20 minute bus ride turned into almost an hour long ordeal all in the name of finding this girl's phone.

We slowly made our way down the main street of the city, heading out to Cangqian but all the while, the bus never stopped at any of the bus stops and no one ever got off the bus. Eventually, we just sat at a stop for about five minutes waiting for the police to arrive.

Our hero and translator, Arvin!!

 The bus (with our police escort now) turned off the plotted path and we headed further and further away from school and home sweet home. It turned out that we were taken to the police station several city blocks from the university. Again, no one could leave the bus until the gang of police officers checked each person and all their bags, all the while the girl standing there searching for her phone that was long gone.

The police and the people on the bus seeing the police as the perfect photo-op (myself included)

The black hat is the police officer

 The lady in all white in the right photo is the whiner... -_-

We have no problem stopping traffic!

  Luckily, we had Arvin with us the whole time and he was able to tell us what was going on and as the police were checking our bags he told them that we were okay because we are American. Being a foreigner does pay off sometimes over here! We made it through the checkpoint, hopped in a cab, and got back to campus around 10 o'clock at night... all the while, that spooky full moon was shining down on us.

Stopping an entire bus and putting everyone's evening on hold just because you were foolish enough to have your phone stolen (again). Making the bus and everyone late as the police search each and every person on the bus all in the name of a phone that probably wasn't even on that bus (if I was the thief, I certainly wouldn't have gotten on the bus). It certainly wasn't scary but it was certainly the kind of thing I would expect from China... and Friday the 13th...

Until Next Time,
Amanda