Muslim Bus Stops

Liuzhou's bus stops are a thing of great joy. They all have names. Usually, they are named after local landmarks such as schools, factories, markets, hotels, hospitals etc. You can see some here.

Unfortunately, the city is changing so rapidly that the names are completely out of date. Schools change name; factories go bust or move. So, the bus stop named “No 1 Dodgy DVD Manufacturing Company” is but a sad reminder of a once thriving city centre facility employing hundreds of workers (but not paying them). The factory has long gone. The boss is now living it up in foreign parts with his mistress and his other mistress. Actually, I just made that up, but you get the idea. And it could be true. The point is the bus stop remains.

My reason for telling you this is that, yesterday, I noticed a bus stop name which had failed to register before. I don’t use buses much, but I had walked past this stop a thousand times. For some reason it grabbed my attention yesterday. It said:

This means “Muslim Restaurant”

A wave of nostalgia swept over me. I do remember. There was a very good Muslim restaurant nearby, but it (sadly) disappeared years ago. In fact, this was a bit of a Muslim area. With this in mind, I looked around and caught sight of the evidence for the last time. In their heroic efforts and march towards socialism with Chinese characteristics they are pulling down all the interesting buildings and replacing them with gaudy neon lit paeans to bad taste beautiful new buildings.

One day, they’ll come for the bus stop signs.

tags: liuzhou  buses  bus stops  muslim restaurants  muslim  restaurant  

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