The Little Match Girl
The young conductress looked more like a poor little match girl than the confident, almost imperial figures I associate with the traditional conductress on the Beijing Buses. The latter were Amazons with beady eyes who ruled their carriages with an iron sway. Their buses were rickety and liable to break down relatively frequently, but, to the ladies who held sway at the door, their bus was a personal “Forbidden City” and they were its’ Dowager Empress. Some made the effort to feminise the rather utilitarian coaches with flowers or banners, but even without these attempts at personalising the work space, one was under no doubt t as to whose territory one was in, and woe betide the mere mortal who did not kowtow before her. This girl was not in the same league. Her bus is one of a shiny new bus fleet which has replaced the clapped out contraptions of only a few years ago. The new models have a very strong corporate stamp to them and one feels that any attempt on her part to personalise this work spaces would be frowned upon by the “suits” in head office. Nothing should distract us from the flat screen TVs pouring advertisements over us as we trundle, relatively speedily it must be said, towards our destinations. She looked more kitchen maid than empress; there has definitely been a change in mandate from Heaven and she has been kicked off her celestial throne.
Her hunched up posture was unlike those of her predecessors who managed always to tower over us mere passengers. Their beady eyes constantly scanned the hoards as they mounted the bus and swift punishment followed those who those how failed to produce evidence of payment. During a longer gap between stops, they would descend to the level of the passengers, bearing their symbol of office, a heavy duty leather pouch, and sweep through the bus, scouting for miscreants. One was expected to produce one’s flimsy ticket, which I invariably could not find. t. However my western face had usually registered on purchase and I was exempt. For the poor Chinese, the story was different. Although nothing as crass as an accusation was ever made when no ticket was offered, one would see grown men, sheepishly proffering up their 1 yuan and listening like chastened schoolboys to the deliberately loud injunction to pay up promptly the next time. In a society where public humiliation is the worst possible punishment, it worked as a disincentive to fare avoidance. My young friend had no such presence about her. A smart card system has largely shorn her of her ticketing responsibilities, and while some of the old hands still keep a practiced eye on the scanning machines, this neophyte seemed unequal to the task and had simply given up. She looked too scared to risk leaving her conductress box and since there is no way of checking the cards she would have to take the word of the passenger in any case. That the fares have been reduced more than 50% in a time of rising inflation makes the effort seem pointless to her perhaps.
She tried, in a rather desultory way to announce the bus stops and direct us to the relevant exits. But her heart wasn’t in it and she could barely be heard. So unlike her elder sisters! They had voices and they knew how to use them. The lambasting that awaited the young person who failed to give up their seat to an elderly “comrade” (the only situation where I ever heard this now quaint title for a citizen being used) was quite serious and even the deafest of passengers was never in doubt as to the next stop. Occasionally one would come across a particularly piercing enunciation which one felt could cut steel. While having to endure its temporary impact, I would raise a silent prayer for the husband that it might never be directed to him. The same voice could part the sea of bicycles as the bus pulled up to a stop, murmuring an indistinct but recognisable incantation into a microphone that miraculously causes the bicycles to weave effortlessly around the bus. My conductress doesn’t need that voice, either to chastise callous youths, the buses are usually too crowed for the elderly to receive such attention, and the bicycle streams have disappeared, swallowed up by prosperity (in the major cities at least). So instead she sat, hardly bothering to mouth, let alone speak the Chinese equivalent of “mind the doors” and instead took refuge in frequent sips from a huge tea flask, the only moment of obvious connection with her Amazonian predecessors.
I felt sorry for my “poor little match girl”. I have been luxuriating in the many advantages which the shiny new bus services have brought me. However, in her I saw the impact on the operators of the new Olympic ready bus system. Her elder sisters exuded a sense of competent responsibility, but she was tied to the drudgery of a very basic assembly line, and clearly had dumbed down to its level. I have been blessed with opportunities and stretching challenges all my life and I thank God for them, but it was salutary to get a sense of how cushioned I am from match girl realities, where one may never get on the first rung of the ladder of opportunity which is being created here. I hope, I pray that somehow God will show me how do more than just observe from a distance, shyly almost, the “match people” of modern China and in his grace actually be present with them in more than the fleeting solidarity that comes from a mumbled Xie Xie as I get off the bus. If only one knew how.