LOS ANGELES -- As I mentioned yesterday in my first diary, the city of Los Angeles is very different from Manila. It's not only the weather that makes the two cities different. One thing I'm starting to realize about LA is that the culture here is also different compared to what we're accustomed to in Manila.
I was boarding the bus in South Gate, LA en route to the Metro train that will take me to Staples Center for the first day of NBA All-Star Weekend. As I boarded the bus, I realized that I hadn't purchased a card yet with stored value. I checked the amount required for the trip, and it amounted to $ 1.75. I didn't have any change with me, so I was about to deposit a $5 bill, when I heard someone say, "Don't do that, that machine won't give you change."
I turn to look and it's a woman sitting in her seat. She motions to me, telling me to sit down beside her. "Are you a student,?" she asks me when I sat down. Flattered as I was that she still thought I was a student, my 32-year-old eyes eventually gave me away (I confessed to her that I wasn't). "If you're a student, you don't have to pay. You can just leave the bus," she told me secretly.
At that point, I had two choices. The first one was to follow the advice of this stranger, who has probably spent much more time in Los Angeles, thus is a veteran on what to do and how to act. So if I did that, I would just get to my stop, exit the bus, and the driver would look at my student-y face and let me go. Sounds like a foolproof plan!
The second choice was to approach the driver at my stop, confess that I didn't have change, and pay the five dollars. The consequence of that decision would be me spending close to the value of 300 pesos on a one-way trip. Five dollars for a bus ride in LA is a lot. In Manila, you can buy two to three meals in a day.
I decided that the risk of being captured and questioned because of failure to pay the bus fare is one that I wasn't willing to make. So as my bus neared my stop, and the door opened, I approached the driver to accept my fate.
"Sir, I don't have any change. I'll just pay with these five dollars."
He looks at me with a confused (maybe amused) smile. "That's okay son, don't worry about it. Have a great day."
Then he waves me off.
I leave the bus perplexed for many reasons. The first one, as I mentioned, was about the culture of LA. Random strangers will approach you, asking for the time (happened to me), what shoes I was wearing (happened to me too, probably the only time someone has said that I was fashionable), offering to take a puff of her vape pen (happened to me, and when she offered it to me I politely declined and walked towards the other side of the Metro station).
And during the All-Star Weekend festivities in the Stales Center, it's the same thing. Journalists from the area will give you a nod, security guards and cashiers will engage you in small talk while scanning your items through metal detectors, or while brewing your coffee.
Why did this come to mind? Because I realized that like the rookies that I was able to meet and talk to for the Rising Stars Challenge, we're all experiencing something new together. My experiences are on all-together smaller scale then those of these superhuman, freakish athletic and world class athletes, but they are new. The rookies like Lauri Markkanen and Kyle Kuzma spoke with an eagerness that showed how happy they were to be in LA. Even master troller Joel Embiid talked about how being at All-Star Weekend as a participant meant more to him than it probably should.
That's one of the realizations I had throughout All-Star Friday: you never have a "first" a second time. Just like your first big purchase, or your first kiss, you never forget the first time. Even NBA athletes understand this, which is why Kyle Kuzma admitted that he's happy to be done with the Rising Stars Challenge because now he can focus on the festivities.
Saturday promises to be different, because the most skilled, best shooters, and most athletic stars take the strange. Only a few of them are rookies. They've had their first All-Star game in the past.
But I've come to realize how important a first All-Star Game is. It's a validation to them, a vindication that they deserve to be amongst the best. And just like the kindness of the bus driver, that will never be forgotten.