Ask not for whom the train waits

There's an old racist joke I remember from my childhood which goes:

Q: What has four arms, four legs, and goes, "Ho-dee-do! Ho-dee-do!"
A: Two black men running for the elevator.

I didn't hear this from anyone in my Mom's family--not that it would've been completely out of character for them. Rather I clearly recall reading it somewhere, though now I can't remember whether that was Maledicta or some old joke book. At the time, I was put off by the mean-spiritedness of the dialect humour. (We, of course, had always been taught that making fun of the way someone talks is one of the meanest things you can do and I was especially sensitive to this due to my stammering.) But that's not all that's being lampooned here.

I recalled this today on my way into work because the northbound train pulled into the station just as I reached the viaduct. I know from experience that even running full tilt at that point won't get you to the train in time; you'll just be sweaty, out-of-breath, agitated, and late. So I shrugged my shoulders and resigned myself to making it in five minutes after nine.

The woman behind me didn't share my fatalism. She broke into a run, her flip-flops clopping wildly, and when she hit the stairs she started screaming "HOLD THE TRAIN! HOLD THE TRAIN!" None of the passengers paid any heed. (Why should they? They've got places to go and holding the door only angers the driver and makes other passengers resentful.) By the time she made it to the top, the doors had snapped shut and the train was pulling away.

Perhaps I could comprehend this kind of carrying on if, say, it were midnight and this was the last train of the night. But this is rush hour on the el; there's another train only minutes behind this one. (In this case, four minutes. Even I was surprised; they even held the shuttle at Howard, so I made it to work with enough time to stop off for breakfast before sauntering in perfectly punctually.)

Given the confusing intersection of race, class, and culture in US society, I'm not sure how to deconstruct my associations. Certainly, being taught to accept missing a train or elevator with equanimity fits in with my identification of Restraint as the cardinal virtue of the petite-bourgeoisie: Don't lose your composure. Don't make a spectacle of yourself. Don't presume upon strangers. The most that's allowed is a moderate dash towards the door, a slightly amplified, "Hold, please!" as you draw near, and a mild expression of disgust if, after all that, you still miss your ride.

That doesn't mean I've never seen middle-class people run for the el, but in this case it's something I associate with adolescents (particularly naïve students) rather than adults. But am I filtering? Does having grown up with a stereotype of lower-class Blacks as excessively expressive lead to observational bias? Do I unconsciously rationalise away similar activity from non-Blacks? ("Oh, they must be tourists; they're used to the Metra and don't know how often the trains run." "Oh, she must have an interview this morning.") Almost certainly true on all counts, but when you strip out these effects, are you left with any valid observations and, if so, how to account for them?

(One theory I've subscribed to before is success: I used to be more ready to run for buses than el trains, because their schedules are often even more erratic and it may be as much as an hour before the next one. But over time I noticed a subtle bias on the part of the chiefly-African-American drivers that another friend of mine summarised as, "I don't run for the bus. Maybe if I were a Black woman, I'd have a chance, but the drivers won't wait for me."

However, the same generalisation doesn't seem to hold for el trains. The drivers on the Linden line in particular are very good about holding the train when they see people coming, whatever their race, particularly at my stop where the stairs are directly in front of their cabs. In fact, it can border on the annoying as the train make two or even three false starts out of the station. And it shouldn't make any difference at all for elevators.)

It starts with a word: A Talk to Muckefuck Story®

I've written many times about the place near work where I eat Korean and the couple running it. But if you'll notice, all my interactions are with the young woman behind the counter. Her husband has always been a silent lurking presence in the restaurant, often off back in the kitchen or quietly reading his paper in a corner of the seating area.

Today, in fact, he was sitting and reading it behind the counter as she took my order. After she'd gone, I went to get some water from the cooler and found they were out of cups. As there was no sign of her returning from the back, I decided I'd have to disturb him and boldly spoke, "여보세요!" This had the desired effect--he sprang from the chair and I said, "Cups." As he came to set them out, the interrogation started: You know Korean? How much Korean? Where did you learn? Have you been to Korea? Do you have an Asian girlfriend?

Ironically, all this time I'd been assuming she was more fluent than he was. Turns out he completed a degree at University of Michigan, which sparked a discussion of language instruction in East Asia and then the Korean and Western educational systems more generally. We talked until my food arrived and the conversation was getting so interesting that I invited him to join me. He sat a respectful distance away as I slurped my soup and spooned my rice and we covered race relations, career prospects, and the state of Chinese economy.

My favourite bit came early on when we were still discussing food. I dropped so many Korean culinary terms (생낙지, 생맥주, 안주, 전라도, etc.)--each one greeted with further surprise and amazement--that he finally said, "I think you are some kind of secret agent! You know too much!" I was embarrassed to admit that I formally studied Korean given how badly I speak it, so I kept downplaying my knowledge of the language and putting it down to having Korean friends in high school and college.

Oh, and kcatalyst will be bemused to find that I brought up the article about Korean shopkeepers which I read at her urging only a few hours ago. It was my turn to be surprised when he readily admitted, "I think Koreans are very racist." I'm not sure how much of his openness is generational (he seems about a decade or more younger than most Korean businessmen I've chatted with--and in terms of modern Korean development, that's a lifetime) and how much is personal. Before he moved back here, he lived in Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, and who knows where else, making him rather more cosmopolitan than the average Korean business owner.

We'd spent some time talking about different cultural expressions of politeness when he noticed that I'd finished my meal and said, "Ice cream? I'm going to do the Korean thing and treat you. Is that insulting?" I accepted graciously and we exchanged names. (Note to self: Keep in practice writing your Chinese signature. Forgetting the spelling of your surname is embarrassing.) I readily acquiesced to being called "대문씨" and, in return, had to accept calling him simply "Jay". And his wife? "Hera, like the goddess!" Given that she occasionally plays Christian music over the loudspeakers, I'll be interested to hear the story behind that one!

I can haz haus?

Sunday, 13. July, 20:13: Initial offer tendered.
Monday, 14. July, 20:04: Final offer accepted.

Clench your buttocks! It's going be a bumpy ride!