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Life in China The Thief on the Bus
Life in China The Thief on the Bus | The Thief on the Bus |
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| China | |
| Tuesday, 12 June 2007 | |
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Beijing 9 – The Thief on the Bus It was a nice day yesterday. Warm and the sun was shining. I had a very nice talk with my Anhui (province) hua gu deng dance teacher whom I bumped into in the canteen before I set off to meet Jingwen and two other friends to go to a fabric market together. While waiting for bus, I realised I didn't have any cash on me, so I went to the cash machine virtually next to the bus stop and took out 500 yuan. It was Saturday and the bus was extremely crowded. It was a long journey too. Jingwen told me to be careful with my belongings as soon as we got onto the bus. I held my bags in front of my stomach quite tightly; I thought that should be safe enough. We eventually arrived. I got off the bus and we started to walk. Out of habit, I was resting my left hand in left pocket of my coat. That was the moment that I realised that the zip of my purse was open. How did that happen? I straight away took out my purse and had a better look - the 500 yuan had gone! I was shocked. It took me a while to "digest" the fact that someone had just stolen all my money! It's true. The money had gone! The purse was thin and empty! "It must have been that man sitting next to you. I thought he looked dodgy, that's why I told you to be careful with your stuff..." Jingwen considered. Another friend said the thief must had spotted me from the cash machine and had been following me since then... So that man put his hand into my pocket, opened the zip of my purse, took the cash out, he did all these and I felt nothing?! Or maybe he took my purse out first, took the cash out and put the purse back into my pocket again? I tried to act normal. I didn't want what had just happened to spoil our afternoon. Beijing has many very wide roads. There are many footbridges for crossing these roads. We were crossing a footbridge and I saw a man sitting on the bridge, in front of him, there were words written by chalk on the floor – "I need to send my mother to the hospital, please help." Jingwen saw me looking at him and his words, "not all these stories are true," she said quietly next to my ear. "I know, even so, he is still hundred times better than that thief on the bus." Two metres away, there was another beggar lying with his tummy on the floor, and that one only had one leg. On the way back, we didn't take the bus. Jingwen was afraid of losing more money so we took a taxi instead. The taxi driver was a dude. He told us many interesting things about Beijing. I really enjoyed listening to him. When he heard that my money was stolen, he told me – "Don't' be too sad. My car was stolen. It was a fairly new car. It took me three years to recover emotionally..." "And my new mobile, five days after I bought it, I was walking on the street, someone cycled a bike just grab it away. That's it." Jingwen added her story too. Their stories did make me feel better. Yes, I was thankful that the thief only had stolen my cash, and the he didn't just take my whole purse, otherwise, my bank card, student card, library card, internet card, canteen card... It could be worse. I must be very careful when take public transportation from now on. MeiMei www.meimei.co.uk |
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