I would like to think that I'm not a fascist

But when you are a mother of two,

Who allows her two children (aged approximately six and four),

To run willy-nilly up and down a public bus that is in motion and subject to the vagaries of rush-hour traffic,

Even when there are two other adult relatives present to help you keep your monster kids in order,

Not to mention a polite bus driver who doesn't tell you off at first opportunity, but in fact waits till your boisterous four-year-old poses an actual threat to his own safety and that of other passengers by clambering all over little nooks and corners at the front of the bus that were not designed as an ersatz jungle gym, and then the bus driver tells you off twice within a fifteen-minute interval, to which you only make the lame and insincere response, "Sorry for the inconvenience (不好意思)" and do not, in fact, restrain your out-of-control child from further endangering himself, the bus or the other passengers,

Then you are a moron who clearly should not be allowed to reproduce,

And I should not have to stifle the instinctive urge to trip your children as they flutter up and down the aisles, or to club them on the head with my umbrella,

And I should not be mired in a bad mood because the tomfoolery of rush-hour traffic exacerbated by unseasonal monsoon-esque rains means that we are all trapped on the bus together for longer than we ought to be.

But life is unfair. The children continued to run free through the bus, their mother continued to act (or perhaps she truly was, frightening thought) oblivious, I continued to glower at them. Perhaps I should have spoken up, but with my mediocre Mandarin --- and it was clear from the bus driver's exchange with her that the family was only Mandarin-speaking --- I'm not sure I could've said anything besides, "Tell your children to stop playing here! This is not a --- " But even then, language fails me and I can't muster the translation for "playground".

So I sat, and stewed, and rehearsed my testimony should an accident befall the bus and I be called upon to testify that the bus driver took utmost care in conveying us to our destination, including warning the mother of the children of their inappropriate and dangerous behaviour, and that any harm that accrued to them was completely the fault of the indulgent and irresponsible mother.

Again I say: people like that are allowed to reproduce?

Fortunately, an hour of Pilates and several glasses of white wine afterwards dispelled the bad mood. Perhaps that is the secret to coming to terms with living in a (relatively) free society.

(I am not a fascist. But I loathe situations that tempt me to the Dark Side.)