Along with San Francisco’s cute, eclectic homes, food-snob restaurants, and beautiful parks, comes a major night life and LBGT culture. The San Fran values were immediately apparent and a bit overbearing. We only spent 10 waking hours in the city, so it’s admittedly not a fair representation of the culture or the people. If a foreigner came to Qingdao and wrote a review of the city after only spending 10 hours there, it’d be pretty offensive. Hence, why I’m not posting this particular blog post on Facebook. Some dear friends have lived, grown up, or loved visiting the bay area, so I certainly don’t want to share an ignorant view.
We got in to the city by the evening time and ate dinner near our hotel at an excellent Indian restaurant. Indian has become a favorite of ours, so we were excited to try out a local place. The chicken curry with garlic nan bread was delicious and hit the spot.
After dinner, we wanted to catch the fireworks show. As we began our trek in that direction I noticed that the city was much dirtier than I expected, with lots of graffiti and trash. It also felt a bit unsafe. So, Ben and I set some expectations for our evening:
Amy - “We need to make a deal here. If we get mugged, you need to give up your iPhone.”
Ben - “Of course. You’re worth more than an iPhone. What do you have to offer?”
Amy - I’ll give them my 3 Musketeers bar. But I’ll throw it at their face for the element of surprise.”
Ben - “Good! And I can throw our leftover nan bread at them like ninja stars.”
Amy - “We got this!”
With full stomachs and a facetious plan for the dark alleys, we were ready to try our hand at holiday evening life in San Francisco. We waited for a bus to take us near the fireworks, during which I definitely felt like a foreigner. Very few people where white with English as their first language. And it felt very comfortable. The multi-racial and international dynamic of this place is crazy-cool. People spoke their native tongue with their friends and family, and spoke English to others around them who were not from the same ethnicity. Some English was perfect, other times it was broken. Everyone was very kind and patient with everyone else. It did not matter your language, color, or background. I really enjoyed how different cultures chose to interact with each other. One black middle aged woman said to a Vietnamese older lady, “I really love your shoes. They look so comfortable.” The woman replied, “Yes, thank you. They are great.” Another time, a Chinese man on the bus asks us which stop to get off. Of course, we take the chance to speak a bit of Chinese with him. As we reflected on this later, our experience in Minneapolis was not similar. We saw many different races in Minneapolis, but they rarely interacted with one another. It’d be interesting to go back to Minneapolis with this in mind to see what it is actually like.
Some people may ask, “Why is race so important to you?” In my current lens on life, someone’s culture affects everything I say and do. If you’re living in white-America, you don’t realize how “being white” is a culture in itself. In my daily context in China, I cannot view the world only through my lens as a “white, middle class, Midwest, American. I need to educate myself, appreciate differences, and lay down my preferences for others. It’s a constant and beautiful thing, and I love learning how to do this better and better. It’s a way to love them. It’s an automatic “in” for relationships and gospel conversations.
Back to San Fran, as the firework bus was approaching, a group of lively black people were asking how to make sure to get on. (…I was eaves dropping, since it’s really hard not to do that when people speak English in such close quarters). I laughed and suggested, “You just gotta push!” One guy joked, “Oh, I’m ready to knock some people over!” Well, we pushed on the bus… something I’ve never done with a bunch of American strangers.
Once on the bus, I had a conversation with a woman in that same group of people. She gripped the pole next to her tightly as the driver hit the break suddenly. I smiled at her and asked, “You don’t take the bus often, do you?”
“No, not really.”
“Are you from around here?”
“Yeah, I just moved here a few months ago.”
“Oh, where from?”
“South Cali.”
“Oh neat.”
“How do you guys like the area?”
“Oh, we are just visiting, but it’s nice.”
“Where are you from?”
(It’s always tricky to answer this question)… “Originally from the Midwest, but we currently live in China.”
“Really? How do you like China?”
“It’s great. Very different from here, though. We do get to ride a lot of buses.”
“Ha! So you really know what your doing!”
“Yeah.”
The firework show was about a half an hour, and a bit disappointing. Maybe China has ruined me for good firework shows. It seemed like any given day in January or February during Chinese New Year (especially since it was about 55 degrees outside). After the show, it was about 10:15, and there was not much else to do. The crowds were too big (and drunk) to really want to go to a restaurant or bar, which costed money that we didn’t want to spend. So, we walked with the crowd and did some free things (like people watching!). I have never seen so many different kinds of people in one place.
The loud, attention hungry teenagers
The young parents with sleeping kids in strollers
The party hardy millennials
The slower moving elderly
The very apparent LBGT
The many, many homeless
The foreign tourists with maps and large cameras
And the many ethnicities with different language, dress, and social norms including: Arabs, Latinos, Russians, Blacks, Indians, British, Koreans, Germans, Chinese, and the varying types of us white folk.
All on the same bus, the same crowd, talking with one another, joking with one another, asking each other questions, getting along just fine. I don’t know if this is the norm for everywhere in San Fran, but this seems to reflect the bus culture that we experienced. In many ways, it’s amazing. We experience this as expats, but haven’t experienced it in America. As expats in China, we connect because we are foreigners. We all have one thing in common: We live in China and we are not Chinese. In San Francisco, it seems that the common point is: We love San Francisco and we want to party.
But, Ben and I…. we are just not partiers. Neither of us ever have been. So staying up until 1 a.m. with a loud crowd, smoky rooms, and crude strangers really doesn’t sound like a good time. And man, were some crude people. But just like pushing in China is not rude, throwing around the F-bomb doesn’t seem crude in San Francisco. Every one does it. And it doesn’t mean much. I think I heard more F-bombs wandering around San Francisco for 10 hours then I did during my last few De Niro films. There was also very explicit sexual conversation happening between people in public places. One woman described “Furries” to a man on the trolly. I hadn't heard of this before, and without any context, I thought she was talking about a job, something like pet-sitting or dog-walking. It is in fact, a fantasy-life, believing that one is an animal and dresses as such in the night time. This has perversions in the sexual-realm as well, and enters into dominatrix like behavior. Like I said, they were talking in normal volume on the bus about this, and it was quite surprising and disturbing. Since we were back to our hotel by 11, we didn’t see much partying, but rather saw the “before crowd” finding their way to restaurants, bars, and clubs. To me, what was most interesting about it was that, in some way, there is community in it.
On the bus with us was a young 20 something “white wanna be black” type of guy. He spoke with F-words in place of adjectives and was just rude, loud, and crude. He asked his friend, across the crowded bus to pass a cigarette back to him. So they pushed into and reached above the crowd to pass a cigarette, took a draw, handed it back, and then proceeded to spit out the window. I really wanted to tell him he’s being rude to those around him, but I knew that wouldn’t go very well. I continued to eavesdrop (‘cause what else can you do, right?), and my attitude towards him began to change. I really enjoyed the exchange he had (albeit loudly) with a black woman on the other side of the bus.
“Hey you. Where’d you get your leggings.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, I’m looking at you. Where’d you get your leggings?”
“Nordstrom.”
“How much you pay for ‘em?”
“46 dollars.”
“They’re cute, ya know?”
“Thank you.”
“Well, maybe they’re not that cute, but you rock ‘em cute, ya know?”
“Thanks.”
“What you sippin’ on?”
“A Lemonita. But it’s already gone, baby.”
“Ah, you already sipped on it. Where you going?”
“[such and such a bar on a certain street].”
“Oh, you’re goin' to a bar? Why don’t you come to the club with us. This one is rockin’!”
“Naw, thanks though.”
“Alright, well this is our stop. Stay safe, ya’ll.”
“We will. You too.”
They had an automatic connection and a mutual understanding, right off the bat. He respected her decision, and she was very polite to him. I would have never had that kind of interaction with him, since I judged him before I even spoke with him. I still think he was acting rude, had a foul mouth, and would probably be making some poor decisions over the next 5 hours. However, I saw the human side of him during that conversation, and I would much rather start there, instead of creating an animal out of someone just because I didn’t understand him.
At that point, a few young white women (who seemed to be in the Lesbian party crowd) got on the bus at this point, and turned on their portable speaker (that had amazing quality for being so tiny, by the way!). It was an R&B song that I hadn’t heard, and something remarkable happened. Those women started singing and dancing (albeit mostly inappropriately). Moments later, the black woman in leggings and her friends began singing along. The older adults of multiple ethnicities in the front of the bus started bobbing their heads and smiling. The whole bus seemed to be a part of an international hip-hop musical that was happening before our eyes. Community, on some level, was happening, and I couldn’t wrap my mind around it.
Ben and I were able to see a lot of the city, and experience much of the local culture. We enjoyed the food and worked our calfs on the large hills. We enjoyed the ease of public transportation and met many interesting people. We sung what we remembered of the Full House theme song and paid the 7 dollars to cross the Golden Gate Bridge. We made it to our road trip destination, and I’m glad we did! But, neither of us have a desire to visit San Francisco again. The party-culture leaves a very dark and empty stamp on the city. I’m glad that many people are called to live in cities like this. I don’t have the life-experience to be heard in a place like San Fran, and just as it is in many ways, it is often more beneficial to speak truth into the life of someone who you have shared similar experiences. As we drove away from the bay area, what I hoped for the people of the city is that clubs, bars, and parties would never compete with the One whom community is truly grounded in.
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