Subtitled: Why I Occasionally Love Public Transit
After a beautiful day doing Bostonish things, I got on a Green Line D train to meet up with my husband in Needham. A woman politely moved her bag so I could sit down, and I was then sandwiched between her and two young women who were showing each other pictures on their smartphones and chatting. I had my headphones on, so the only thing I could tell about their conversation was that it wasn't in English.
Across the aisle from us were four adolescent boys at the stage where they need to take up as much space and be as loud possible lest the world forget they exist for ten seconds. I could hear every word of their conversation over my music. Two of them were talking about the ladies next to me. One of them decided that the best way to get their attention would be to mumble "ni hao" (Chinese for "hello." Thanks, Ni Hao, Kai-Lan!) in their general direction. The women didn't respond.
Over the course of the next two stops, the boys said "ni hao" at the women with varying degrees of volume and mockery, never actually making eye-contact with them. The ladies continued talking to each other and pointedly ignoring the guys. When the group of guys got up to get off the train, two of them waved at the women and said, "ni hao!" one more time.
One of the women, in accented but perfect English said, "If you're talking to us, we don't speak Chinese. We're speaking Spanish."
