Thursday August 21, 2014
6:10 a.m.

Not much on my mind this morning. I already wrote about my trip out to the zoo. One thing I didn’t mention is that there was a distinct difference in atmosphere out there as opposed to here in the downtown area. I wasn’t far away. It was really hard cycling because of the steep hills, but I rode only about nine kilometers to get to the zoo. But the people were completely different. They clearly rarely saw foreigners and everyone was much more friendly and more willing to engage me. I heard a lot of the familiar cries of ‘Hey, Joe!” At one point, I was sheltering from the rain underneath a big tree, and a man walked came up to me and asked me if I needed help. I could sense that the young workers at the zoo really wanted to talk to me. If I had let them in, they would have overwhelmed me with friendliness. I was careful to keep them at arm’s length, though, because I knew the ensuing conversation by heart: Where are you from? How old are you? Are you married? Etc

There’s an older western man in the 7-11 this morning. I’d had a short conversation with him the other morning when he was also here. He saw me typing on the NEO, and he asked me if the 7-11 had Wi-fi. It took me about five seconds to realize that he was a bit loopy. Many of the ex-pats living here are a bit crazy. Against my better judgement, I went up to him this morning. I was just curious if he’d seen a weather forecast and if he knew how long this weather system was supposed to stick around. He didn’t know anything about the weather, but now that I’d made contact, he wanted to talk to me about all kinds of crazy things. He was clearly on his own and very lonely. For some reason, he started telling me that Russia was closing all the McDonald’s and doing this for revenge. I had no idea what he was talking about and got myself out of the conversation. A bit later, he came over to my table and asked me again if the 7-11 had Wi-fi. He’d totally forgotten that he’d already asked me that the other day.

The regular ex-pats in this neighborhood are quite a scary bunch. I can’t even guess what the Filipinos think of them. They shock me when I see them sometimes, so the Filipinos must be even more shocked. There is one man in particular. He is very tall and hugely overweight but not in a bulging fat kind of way. He’s more solid than that and gives the impression of being a tank on the move. He’s so big that he can’t move very fast and he kind of waddles along. The terrible thing about him is the condition of his legs and feet. He must have some kind of medical condition. They’re terribly swollen and look infected. His feet are a mess – swollen with cracked skin and infected sores. His toenails don’t even look like toenails anymore. They are so badly infected they are just big lumps of yellow gunk on his toes. I have never heard him speak or seen him with another person, so I don’t know if he is crazy. Perhaps he’s a normal guy and is just here because he can’t afford medical treatment in his home country. Many of the Americans are here for that reason.

I suppose a typing session wouldn’t be complete without a rant on something, so here goes: I went up to the counter as usual to pay for my medium coffee. Then they give me a paper cup with a lid and a stir stick and creamer. Then I would normally go over to the coffee machine, place my cup under the dispenser, and push the appropriate button. But, this morning, there was a young Filipino man there already getting coffee. Worse, he was getting two cups of coffee. So I had to wait. That’s no problem except that the one comfortable table in the joint – the one with the air conditioner as a back rest – was currently empty, and I wanted to get there as fast as possible to stake a claim. I wanted to stick my cup under the dispenser, push the button, and then go over to the table and put down my NEO to reserve the spot. But I couldn’t do that because this guy was ahead of me.

Anyway, this guy took FOREVER. Two women came in. They were his friends and they stood beside him, all three of them crowding around the coffee machine. The machine finished dispensing the two cups of coffee, but instead of moving away to let me in, this guy stayed right there and started opening his cream and sugar packages and mixing them into the coffee. He was chatting with the girls, so he was distracted and went so slowly. I was clearly visible standing there waiting for my turn at the coffee machine, but he would not move away. He stayed right there in front of the machine with his friends and didn’t move. It’s a small thing, I know, but stuff like that fascinates me. I can’t understand what it is like to be inside the brain of a person like that. I’m the complete opposite in that I’m totally aware of my surroundings at all times. I know what is happening around me. I take it all in and I adjust my behavior accordingly. It’s how I stand and walk and ride my bike and do all the hundreds of things we do all day long. I can’t fathom a brain that can stand in front of a coffee machine and block it while another person is right there holding an empty coffee cup and clearly waiting. It’s not that this guy was rude. He wasn’t making me wait on purpose. No, he was completely oblivious. He might not even have seen me. And if he saw me, he wasn’t aware that I was waiting for the coffee machine. He simply didn’t know. What would it be like to be inside that brain? I think it must be a happier place, certainly a simpler place.

This is something I think about as I walk down the sidewalks here. I think about it all the time. I realize that I instinctively get out of everyone’s way. I always make room. And I’ve often wondered if there are two types of people in the world – those who make room for others and those who don’t. I do it so naturally that I don’t even think about it. Internally, I assume that everyone is doing it. And that’s how we manage to walk down crowded sidewalks. But it’s clear that that isn’t true at all. Some people make way for others, and some people don’t. Those who don’t are like this guy at the coffee machine – oblivious. They just walk and aren’t even aware that people around them are making room and getting out of their way. Once in a while, to amuse myself, I do a test and just walk in a straight line. I do all the right things, of course. I stay far to the right. I keep my arms in tight. But I just walk without making way for other people, without slowing down and speeding up, without turning sideways to let people past, without ducking to the left and right to avoid the packages dangling from people’s arms. And when I do that, I end up running into people like an NFL lineman. If I don’t move out of the way, I end up slamming into just about everyone. It’s weird. It makes me think of that old kids game where you just start windmilling your arms and fists and walking forward toward your friends. You reason that if your friend gets hit, it’s their fault for not getting out of the way. The worst accidents occur when someone walks across my path. This happens all the time here. I’ll be walking down a sidewalk or across the street at a crosswalk. I’ve got the natural right of way, of course, but people will walk across my path and if I don’t slow down, they’ll slam right into me. Those times when I do this experiment, I end up running right into these people. I can see the collision coming and can time it perfectly. Normally, I’d slow down to avoid it. But if I don’t slow down, we run right into each other. So what is going on in the brain of this other person? I wonder if there is some kind of unconscious signal we all give out so that we are aware of the nature of the other people. Do these other people receive an unconscious signal from me that I’m the type of person that will make way for them, and so they don’t have to worry about it? And when I act against type, it’s a big surprise? I did this one time crossing a crosswalk, and a woman came barrelling along at a right angle to me. She was walking down the street and against the light, but she kept straight on. I just kept walking as if she wasn’t even there, and we met in just such a way that my foot hit hers and she tripped and nearly went flat on her face on the pavement. I didn’t stop or look. Just kept walking. I felt silly, because she really could have hurt herself. But I also felt mystified. Why didn’t SHE slow down or turn out of the way? Surely, she could see the collision coming, too. But I guess not.

Yesterday was a bad day for this in terms of cycling. Pedestrians would cross the street in front of me and our relative speeds would be such that if one of us didn’t change our course, we would collide. This happened all day long over and over and over again. I have no choice but to slow down or swerve around them. If I didn’t act, I would slam right into them. So, again, what is going on inside their brains? Do they not see me? Do they assume I’ll swerve around them? That involves a lot of trust, because if I don’t swerve, they’re going to be badly hurt. Occasionally, I’ll keep my speed and course steady and go right at the person and hit my brakes at the last second just to scare them and make it clear what could have happened.

It goes without saying that drivers of cars and vans and jeepneys and trucks do that all the time. They constantly pull out from a side street right in front of me and if I don’t hit the brakes, I’ll run right into them. This happens all day long. Occasionally, I won’t reduce my speed and I’ll go straight at the vehicle and then hit the brakes hard and stop an inch from the window just to let them know what a stupid thing they did. But, of course, it’s pointless. All these people are like the idiot at the coffee machine – oblivious. When I think about it like that, I can’t help but conclude that it is unfair. I have to go through life constantly monitoring my surroundings and being aware and making room for other people. Most other people don’t have to do this, and worse, aren’t even aware that the people around them are doing it. I have to do all this work to keep them safe and make space for them, and I don’t get any gratitude for it. They don’t even know that I’m doing it.

I wonder what the ratio is here as opposed to in Canada? Is the ratio between the aware people and the unaware people the same? You’d think more people in Canada are aware, because you don’t get these problems there at the same level. But it could be that we are just trained to be more polite or that everything is just designed better in Canada. There is more space for everyone.

End of rant… for now.

Tags: Canada, FOREVER, NEO, NFL, Philippines Bike Trip 2013, Thursday August