So I had an experience the other day. Was wondering whether to put it in here, the Chicago thread or just make a new thread. Seeing how the other threads like this have devolved, I figured I wouldn't start the shitshow that a new thread on this would entail.
Basically, my wife and I were on the El in Chicago on Sunday. Now we've both lived here for a long time and are used to the typical crazies that ride the El. It's a pretty crowded train until they announce that they're going express to 5-6 stops later (we were headed to one 8 or 9 so it worked out for us). The train empties and then there's like 5 people in the car.
One is a guy across from us, disheveled, looking like he's homeless and/or recently been in a hospital. He's wearing hospital paper pants and pretty much passed out. Typical thing you'd seen on the El. But halfway through, he wakes up. He kinda looks around in a daze, but then kinda passes back out off and on. We didn't take much to it, but then halfway through, he starts just basically yelling at me and my (by the way, 31 weeks pregnant) wife. He started screaming about immigrants, calling us all sorts of racial shit "slanty-eyed motherfuckers" etc. He went on in particular to no one about Trump being right and so forth and blah blah blah and how no one cared about him.
For me, I basically just let it bounce off me and tried to ignore him, but the more I did it the more I realized it was escalating the scenario. I do think that he was either on something and/or mentally or medically ill (he was slurring his speech, had delusional tangential thoughts, etc... again not unlike what you typically see on the El) but my wife was really distraught, almost in tears. She's been a Chicagoan and city person for way longer than I have but the added stress of pregnancy I think was really hitting her too. I was trying not to engage as best I could with the dude but he stood up a couple times, and if we would've approached my wife and my unborn kid, I don't know what I would've done but I would've needed to physically get involved with protection instinct kicking in.
Having said that, my faith in humanity was somewhat restored. There was a young couple who talked with the guy when he started spouting the "they ain't American" thing and talked about how we all were in the same boat, and how we could choose to try to live together, etc. Another lady came up later to try to calm the dude down and check on my wife. Eventually, when I did speak up to the guy, I think he was surprised that I spoke fluent English and that seemed to calm down his tirade; after we spoke for a bit, he went into this whole "nobody care's about me.." tirade and so forth, which sadly I think was true. When we left the train, I told him to have a good day and he seemed to be much calmer. My wife was on the verge of tears though.
Anyhow, this wasn't the typical racial stories you see like the airBNB thing or the post-election clear hate crimes and the source was clearly ill (I'm a medical professional so yeah, I can call it). Having said that, it was an experience that I felt I should share.
Has he never heard of other ethnic enclaves in cities? I mean, here in Chicago I live five minutes away from Little Italy and Greektown. They've been gentrified over the years, but the same thing is happening to the Chinatown here.
I live pretty close to you. Where's your go-to for Asian food? Umai's pretty good in the South Loop. My Chinatown stop is Ming Hin, Strings is good for Ramen. There's a new K BBQ place too that opened up recently which I've wanted to check out (Dae bak). Plus I'm sure you're like me and aware of the H Mart that's opening up near Greektown soon.
