When I was studying in the UK, I took some chances to have short trips by coach, a single decked long-distance bus. My reason to do was very simple - it was cheap. I had often taken coach in the evening, and I arrived at new place to visit in the next morning. I could sleep in the coach, and save my money and time.
In those trips, sometimes I was lucky enough to have a seat next to interesting people whom I loved to talk with. Conversations in coach could be started sometimes by just saying hi to them or by more complicated ways.
One day, one little girl with her mother got on the coach from London to Liverpool. I was reading a book at that time, but I could not get into the story of the book. The girl took a seat next to me, and her mother had a seat across the corridor. The little girl (could be 5-8 years old) looked up to me and just gave me a small smile, so I looked back to her and said hi. I tried to go back to read the book, but I noticed that the girl swinging her legs a little. I imagined she was bored, so I started to talk to her. I realized that she had a cute hairy backpack, thus I decided to use it as a talking point.
"You have a cute bag. It's Teletubbies, right?" It's children's TV series.
"Yes."
"Your green one is called.... Laa-Laa?"
"No! Laa-Laa is a yellow one! This is Dipsy."
"The shape of Laa-Laa is like..." I opened my sketch book and started drawing a poor thing.
"No, no, Laa-Laa is like... this!" She could not stand my poor drawing, so she took my pencil and started drawing.
"Tinky - Winky is like this, isn't it?" Her mother supported our conversation from time to time.
We talked and talked on many things, including her dreams and my dreams for almost 2 hours. She drew herself wearing China dress singing (her dream was to become a singer like Spice Girls and travel around the world) and gave it to me. I t was almost Christmas time, and I was missing my family at that time. But the conversation with her made my heart warm. I still keep her drawing in my drawer.
I guess physical closeness in coach and a bit of excitement in trips could make people closer mentally. Needless say, we are not always luck to have good conversations with strangers, but when it happens, it will left you up and you could feel that English opens a new windows of the world.
▼▽▼▼椎名さんの過去の記事を読む━━━━━━━━━━━
・【High motivation is a key of success?!】2008.10.20 (Mon)
・【Iraqi refugees in Jordan- part one】2008.11.17 (Mon)
・【Iraqi refugees in Jordan- part two】2008.12.08 (Mon)
・【India as my school】2008.12.15 (Mon)
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Posted By: 椎名 規之 on January 26, 2009
