Chapter 91: Collision

There were plenty of round-trip Greyhound buses from Los Angeles to San Francisco, so there was no need to worry about missing one. After breakfast, Su Mu set out with Li Pingan, and his father, Su Dingcai, drove them to the bus station in a battered old pickup.

Because their ideas about money and status were so different, newly arrived Chinese immigrants often regarded cars as symbols of standing and success. But descendants of the earlier immigrant families, like the Sus and the Lis, had been shaped by American culture for so long that they found it hard to understand that way of thinking.

Su Mu did not think it shameful that his father drove an old car, and neither did Li Pingan. In his heart, a car was simply something to be driven. Aside from the wealthy with a special passion for automobiles, few people would intentionally buy a luxury car.

Even the super-rich were not necessarily any different. Steve Jobs often rode a motorcycle to work; Su Mu had once seen him on the road, though unfortunately he had no chance to speak to him.

The United States had the world’s largest used-car market. For many children, the first gift they received upon coming of age was a secondhand car. It might even be rusted in places, but many of them still loved it.

Yet not everyone saw things that way.

Just then, Su Dingcai had barely parked outside the station and was about to take his son and Li Pingan to buy their tickets when a car behind them suddenly slammed into the back of their truck. The old pickup rocked with a loud crash.

Before long, a stout man wearing a gold chain and carrying a leather briefcase under one arm came over. He first removed his sunglasses, glanced at the battered pickup, and showed clear disdain.

Then, noticing that Su Dingcai was also Asian, he immediately seemed to find his footing. The station was near Chinatown, and most of the passengers there were Chinese.

With an irritated expression, he cursed in Cantonese, “What kind of driving is that? You hit my Mercedes, do you know that? I just bought a new car and haven’t even insured it yet. Pay up!”

That was how Mercedes-Benz was commonly called in Hong Kong and Macau. Mainland Chinese would not pronounce it that way. Su Mu thought this man must be from Hong Kong; after all, Macau had too small a population to run into so easily.

Su Dingcai switched off the engine and took out the key only after hearing the crash. Once he got out, he said good-naturedly, “How did I hit you? Unless a car can move after the handbrake is set, then what happened? Clearly you hit me. Are you going to be reasonable or not?”

Seeing that they were indeed Chinese, the man became even more brazen and threw a tantrum in English. “Everybody come look! He hit my car and refuses to pay! Police! Over here!”

Unaccustomed to dealing with such a scoundrel, Su Dingcai was nearly furious enough to explode. He also shouted in English, “Bullshit! Open your eyes and look at the cars. Who hit whom?”

Li Pingan and Su Mu also got out. Unlike his angry father, Su Mu remained very calm, and at once understood that this was another man trying to pass himself off as wealthy.

Car insurance in the United States generally fell into three categories: comprehensive coverage, which paid regardless of who was at fault; partial coverage, which paid only if the other side was responsible; and so on. Since the man before them was shameless enough to twist right and wrong, he probably had not bought full coverage and did not want to pay for repairs. If he were truly rich, why would he tarnish his conscience over such a trivial sum?

The two sides continued arguing. Su Dingcai, convinced of his own rightness, spoke very loudly and attracted quite a crowd of onlookers. Two white police officers responsible for maintaining order also came over to ask what had happened.

The man with the Mercedes hurriedly turned the tables. “Officer, he hit my car! A brand-new car worth tens of thousands of dollars. He doesn’t want to pay, and he’s falsely accusing me of hitting him!”

“He’s lying! Gentlemen, he clearly hit our car!”

Before his father could answer, Su Mu suddenly spoke up. Pointing to the parking meter, he continued, “After we parked, I helped my father feed coins into the meter through the car window. I could only insert the coins after the car was parked here, which means our car did not move. He came from behind and hit us.”

“Also, look at the skid mark under his front wheel. Only hard braking leaves a black streak, while there is nothing under my father’s wheel. My father had set the handbrake at the time. So after the collision, our car did not move much at all; it only rolled forward a few inches. If we had backed up and hit him, how could our car have moved forward?”

The two policemen followed Su Mu as he crouched down, and indeed saw the mark showing the car had moved forward, as well as the skid marks beneath the Mercedes’ front wheels. The Mercedes was also clearly about to leave, with one side of its nose already beyond the parking line.

At that moment, a Chinese vendor who had been silent all along called out from where he stood, “The car behind hit the one in front. I saw it. When I heard the crash, I saw the Mercedes braking!”

With an eyewitness and physical evidence proving the other party was at fault, the middle-aged, corpulent Mercedes owner still refused to yield. “What do you mean I hit him? Where’s your evidence? Just because he says he saw it, does that make it true?”

An older policeman was visibly disgusted by his attitude and said, “If that’s the case, then we can only settle it in court. I’m willing to testify for the other side and confirm that you did, in fact, hit him. To ensure fairness, I’ll have other officers help collect the statements of the witnesses. If you later lie under oath in court, you could very well end up in prison. This is a false accusation. You have the right to seek compensation for emotional distress and damage to your reputation, sir.”

The last sentence was addressed to Su Dingcai.

This policeman was quite decent; he helped solve the problem and did not stand by and smooth things over.

The Mercedes owner was instantly silenced. Covering his nose, he said he wanted to settle and would only agree to pay Su Dingcai two hundred dollars.

Su Dingcai did not want to sue. Setting aside the time it would waste, the expensive lawyer’s fees alone were enough to give him a headache. It was just a dent in an old truck, after all, so he agreed to accept the two hundred dollars in compensation.

If it had been anyone else, the man might very well have gotten away with turning the tables. But Su Mu’s explanation was clear and well-founded, and he immediately convinced the police to believe him. It was far more efficient than letting his father argue endlessly. Smart people always preferred to solve problems in the most efficient way.

After muttering a venomous curse in Cantonese about snakes and rats in the same den, the Mercedes owner paid and left at once, even saying he would file a complaint against the two officers. Perhaps he was just trying to save face.

As for Hong Kong in that era, “chaotic” was the most fitting description. Since the sixties and seventies, it had indeed grown wealthier thanks to foreign trade, but the overall standard of conduct still lagged behind, and every trade and occupation seemed disorderly.

The people who looked down most on the poor old immigrants in Chinatown were the new arrivals from Hong Kong and Macau. They might not necessarily have much money, but they were usually bad-tempered and looked down on the “poor relatives” in Chinatown.

As for the new immigrants from the mainland, in those days they still believed that their American compatriots were all rich, and were too busy admiring them to look down on them.

The vast majority of traditional Chinese in America were like punching bags, unwanted by their wealthier countrymen and discriminated against by people of other races. Life was truly hard for them. Added to that were miserable living conditions, so although Chinatowns in various places looked lively on the surface, behind that bustle lay nothing but bitterness and hardship.

“He must have just immigrated. His manners are terrible!” Su Dingcai said angrily as he helped his son carry the snacks they had bought, the tickets already in hand, while they waited for the bus. Thinking back on what had just happened, he was still upset.

It was true that many countries had a poor impression of Chinese people, and there were indeed plenty of reasons rooted in Chinese behavior itself. When one Black man committed robbery, it reflected on an entire community. When one Chinese person was sly, opportunistic, and unwilling to observe ordinary civility, the image of Chinese people was tarnished as well.

“Not necessarily. His English sounded pretty standard to me. Father, just calm down. Didn’t he already give you two hundred dollars?”

Su Mu knew his father’s temper well. Sure enough, Su Dingcai could not help laughing and said, “The truck doesn’t need fixing. It’s just a dent, and the whole thing is dented anyway. Keep the two hundred bucks. Free money. When you get there, take Pingan somewhere good to eat...”