Trip to Bristol

Posted by Shiny

During the Easter holiday, I visited my relatives who are working in Bristol.

It was a long, long journey which lasted for over four hours.  As usual, I enjoyed the time on the train.  As I’ve never been on a train in China, after I came to the England, I’ve become attached to trains and never, or not yet, got fed up with it even if the journey is long or even though some trains are a bit filthy.

And as usual, it started raining not long after I left home.  Although my name is Shiny, it rains almost every time when I want to do something vital or meet someone important to me.  There is a saying in China: “The auspicious people usually travel with rain or immerse into water.”  I am not sure whether I am one of them or not.  It suddenly reminds me of an ex-classmate or a “diehard follower”, How Huang, who got wet three times when he came to my house.

It took me 1h 40min to get to Southampton Central from Brighton and it rained extremely heavily outside the window, which took away my interests of enjoying beautiful scenery.  But thank goodness, the sun smiled at me when I got on the train to Bath Spa. 

On the train, I saw a international couple of a Chinese wife and a British husband with their son.  The man was not in good health and he was a bit whiny.  Meanwhile he got annoyed by his wife’s reluctant English, especially the pronunciation.  Sometimes they couldn’t understand each other.  And obviously the husband is in dominant position in the family and he couldn’t stop rebuking his wife. 

I started wondering why Asian females are keen on marrying Westerners while Asian men are hardly able to approach a Western girl.  Let’s say the woman I saw, as language plays such an important role in communication, she still devotes herself to a foreigner.  I am not saying that I oppose the international marriage, yet I do think that there was a misunderstanding in the mind of many people.  It seems that they admire the Western cultures to an inappropriate extent that they tend to go abroad regardless of how their life will be changed, and no matter what they are going to suffer from.  Fortunately the man I saw appeared to be an good father.  If he can treat her wife a bit better with patience, he might be perfect.  After all, I know it is not easy to do so when you cannot communicate in an easy way.

The train was as unclean as expected, and it may have less than 100 seats.  When the sun penetrated the thick clouds and unveiled itself, I was concentrating on some lovely mathematics questions.  But only until I realized that outside the window there was fabulous countryside.  Rivers hover around the green lawns with traditional houses and cotton-like clouds creeping in the blue sky.  In the gentle breeze, different species of plants are seen alongside.  It varies from the low bulrushes to the reach-to-sky bamboos.  You may tell how freezing it was on the past few days by looking at the clothes on the cows and sheep. 

I couldn’t stop taking photos as I’ve seen the fascinating landscape which I could only find in a picture online which seemed to have been Photoshoped.  Never did I believe that there was such a breathtaking beauty of nature around me until I eventually witnessed it.  It was pity that Mie didn’t travel with me as I guarantee she would have liked it too.  It was a pity that I didn’t take all the photos I wanted to on the train as I didn’t realize that there was a beautiful sight outside the window and I didn’t get prepared, neither myself nor my camera.  I know I’ll be taking the same train back to Brighton soon, but how do I know whether the weather is going to be fine or not.

My dear friends: life is like a train on which we sit with or without friends.  But this train is usually taking you on a one way trip, so you are not allowed to go back.  No matter how busy you are, please don’t forget to have a glance of the beautiful scenery outside the window, otherwise you may regret as you can’t go back. 

The most crucial thing is to have someone accompany you, or in other words, to accompany others.  You might travel by yourself all your life.  Nonetheless, having a loyal friend is more than indispensable.  They share your happiness and auspicious in deep.  He is always standing there when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelm you.  He will devote himself to you. 

When it rains, he is willing to share an umbrella with you although the rain may wet his shoulder, and he is always preparing to give you a hand when you are stepping in the mud.  You will never feel scared in the darkness since he will always be your light with might.  When the rain is gone, he will still be holding your hand, either sitting next to you or embracing you in the splendid bright coming from the rainbow after storm.  So my dear friend: when someone precious comes to you, please don’t let him become a passer-by.  Please cherish it, the destiny!

As I had predicted, the family I saw was also going to Temple Meads, so when we got off the train to Bath we then got on the same train to the Bristol station.  Suddenly the man was quite talkative, and though the trip was short, we chatted a lot.

I’ve printed out some maps from Google for emergency use, but I don’t need to use it.  Just after I arrived at the station, my relative rang me.  After a while, they came to pick me up from the station led by a young man who has been working in Bristol for approximately ten years.  We took a walk in the centre of Bristol after which we went back to the restaurant they are working in.

Rosy, their daughter was sleeping on the chairs which suddenly made me speechless.  I had a feeling that life was quite hard and tedious for a restaurant worker like them.  The people there have to work for two sessions per day which are 12:00-14:30 and 17:00-23:00.  Moreover, they live in the countryside and it takes them 20 minutes on bus from their house to the bus stop near the restaurant.  After getting off the bus, there will be another 10 minutes on foot.  It sounds horribly terrible to me.  When it is the peak time for dinner, the boss will doubtlessly feel extremely happy, but how about the workers?  They must be exhausted at the end of the day.  But a worker told me that he had got used to the life here.  Anyway, he is still young and energetic, but God knows how others feel.

I took a walk around the city but I couldn’t find many eye-catching things around.  So I decided to go back to the restaurant to seek fresh things.  The people there were quite busy so they didn’t have time to accompany me, therefore I just kept sitting on the sofa reading some magazines and newspapers, but they didn’t have English newspapers. 

The things I read were either entertaining or useless.  Sometimes entertainment means nothing to me and soon I got bored.  I was trying to help them do some work but I realized that I could do little work due to the compliment of the boss and people there.  I made up my mind to satisfy myself, so I went out again to immerse myself into the nightlife of Bristol.

This city is actually livelier than Brighton, and even on a chilly night, people still go clubbing and walk around the streets.  The light was not special but the atmosphere of night was acceptable.  I can’t remember when I started becoming picky.  There was a quay in Bristol but I just had no interest in it as the Brighton Marina looks much better.  The buildings of Bristol University look nice, but we could find many similar ones all around the UK.

When I went back to the restaurant, I found myself refilled and energetic.  And I started taking over and helping out at the restaurant as some people have finished their part-time job and they were eating their dinner.  I began to socialize with both the staff and the customers.  There was an interesting old man who was celebrating his retirement with his colleagues.  Stage fright still occurs to me, but I then forced myself to join them and once the conversation started, I jollified the scene.  All the people at that table couldn’t stop laughing.  But perhaps I still need to improve my sense of humor as it is important to improve yourself, including humor.

A restaurant is a nice place for experiencing since you can see diverse kinds of people.  To exemplify this, I think I have to mention the three incorrigible nuts we encountered.  These three nasty boys came in for dinner and ate many things in the buffet at an amazingly rapid speed, but when they came to the till, one of them said he had forgotten to bring his wallet.  We told him to borrow money from his two friends, but he still didn’t obey.  The boss was not there, yet the conspiracy was detected by the girl at the till and she said, “In that case, we’ll have to call the police.”  The boy was scared and finally he gave in and paid the bill by himself!   

After the restaurant was closed, the boss drove us home.  The house they are staying in is of the same structure as that I used to stay in.  The interior design is not bad, but the toilet and bathroom is absolutely appalling and disgusting.  Lichen covers the whole wall and it was wet everywhere and the wall seems to be cracking.  And eight people took showers in turns.  People number themselves to stay in queue.  You couldn’t expect to have a comfortable shower as people will kick you out for staying in for too long.

They don’t have many things to do after work.  The women watch TV episodes and the boys and men watch movies.  I was so exhausted that I went asleep straight away after I lay down in bed.  They don’t have beds but just mattress, everything is more than simple.  I would say the living condition is far worse than the house in hometown we used to live in.  Someone woke me up when I was dreaming and I was told to get dressed and so on.  I didn’t know what I was doing as I was still damn sleepy and didn’t know what was going on.  And then I followed them onto a bus.

I don’t know why, but when with my relatives, or somebody from my hometown, I can always feel their hospitality wherever I go, so is this time.  I am always forced to be loved and happiness shields me.  This is the craziest love apart from the love of my parents, grandparents and maybe lover.  I seriously appreciate this and I sincerely feel grateful about life, maybe God as well who gave me the gifts which nowhere else can offer.  But I found it weird to talk in our own dialect, neither in Mandarin or Cantonese.  I sat quietly in the closed restaurant, looking out of the window and saw millions of cars moving around. The signs are all in English, I still feel as if I were dreaming.  Although I’ve been in England for almost two years, I still couldn’t believe that I am abroad, outside my hometown.

Different people may live in different circumstances, but their life may be equally difficult.  Life is hard, but the hardness represents itself in different forms to us.  Life can be inexorable, but just get used to it by experiencing more.  Only if you make yourself endurable can you liberate yourself.