Taxi Paranoia

I climbed into the taxi, after waiting in the airport line, at the front of the long rows of glowing red “for hire” signs, lit up in neon Chinese characters, bursting through the windshields of the taxis as they ambled by. I gave my address as I shut the door; he wordlessly flipped the hire sign down. As the decrepit speaker gurgled in Chinese and then English, I really felt I had returned. The receipt machine drummed its rhythm like a drum roll to my impending adventures. In Shanghai again, I ran a hand across the white cotton seat covers. Luckily there were no suspect brown stains or strange lingering odours in this taxi. As we entered the highway, the driver flipped his car into high gear and began to live out his F1 racing fantasies. I gripped onto the handrail above the window, my heart racing, as he weaved through the traffic, jolting suddenly left and right, accelerating the whole time. I didn’t want to die before I could see Shanghai again. Instead I closed my eyes and thought about the first time I had come to Shanghai.

 

It was 2003, I had just arrived home in Australia after spending a week boiling in Paris during the worst heat wave in recorded history. Through a friend, I contracted to work in a Shanghai Jazz Club. It was an emotional time; I was about to leave my girlfriend and all my friends behind, to embark upon a new life, playing in a club I knew nothing about, with people I had never met and had signed my life away to, for a six months contract. My last night in Sydney, I had played a few tunes with my friend’s band and had allowed myself to pour the chaos of emotions and uncertainty I was feeling, into my saxophone. A man who had been at the bar came up to me afterwards and said, “You’re tearing ma heart out mate!”

 

The flight was the usual knee bruising cramped space, with food unveiled to disappointment from beneath the tin foil. My arrival in Shanghai was given a sense of finality by the authoritative thud of the customs stamp. After the various queues, leaving the air-conditioned sanctuary of the airport, I had emerged into a sticky Shanghai summer night, like leaving the air lock of a space ship, before entering an alien world of heat. My shirt immediately clung to my body, bonded with sweat that trickled down the waterways of my back. I felt sticky, tired and irritated. Where was the person who was meant to meet me at the airport? I had been expecting a person holding a sign with my name on it. I went to a public phone and after some confusion, (every country has some strange system for public phones) I called the number for the company’s secretary. “Where are you?” I asked, making sure there was enough emotion in my voice to convey my annoyance. “I am…beep beep.” The phone had cut out. I dialled again and connected to a voice in Chinese, obviously not her. After many tries and the same voice, I thought she must have turned her phone off. Why was she avoiding me? I looked at the piece of paper I had. There was only a phone number and the address of the Club I was contracted to, ‘Xin Tian Di’. In those early days, my pronunciation of fledgling Chinese only contributed to my sense of cultural isolation. Fear is a strange thing, in unfamiliar places my imagination loves to take the reins. I looked at the row of taxis outside and my mind raced through many possible scenarios, many of them ending with me robbed and/or dead at the end.

 

Emotion must have been emblazoned across my face and some very ‘helpful’ people from the Westin Hotel saw their ‘opportunity to assist’ me. I was about to learn lesson No. 1 in a foreign country.  When there is a person who is being very friendly and helpful - walk the other way. This was a case of what the Chinese like to call ‘yin3 hu3 ju4 lang2’: to invite tigers to fight against wolves - trying to avoid trouble by actually inviting another greater trouble. “Yes, Shanghai taxis are dangerous, take our airport shuttle, it is around the same price as a taxi and much cleaner and safer, we can take you for only 350rmb,” explained the terribly nice man from the Westin Hotel. Calculating the exchange rate in my head it seemed about the same as a taxi fare from the airport in Melbourne. I thought China was meant to be cheap? I found out later the average price is 150rmb. I had been duped.

 

Taxi paranoia is a major symptom of the freshly arrived barbarian (those foreigners completely unversed in the language) in China. Many foreigners suspect taxi drivers are taking advantage of them, their gross mispronunciation of the addresses, a neon sign declaring their unfamiliarity with the city. One strategy I employed for masking my poor pronunciation of the street names, was to say it very fast. Surprisingly, this often worked. In those first years in China though, I often feel helpless in the back seat, gazing at unfamiliar streets going by, wondering why they were not familiar on this route, despite having gone to the same address before. Not being able to discuss the best possible route, or even being able to say, “I think you are taking me the long way”, can make people feel so powerless that they even suspect drivers who are in fact taking them by the fastest route. In fact, I have become irate with a driver sometimes, only to feel ashamed later, when I realized the driver had taken me the best way. Sometimes a taxi driver will ask which route is preferred only to be met with an embarrassed shrug as the foreigner addressed has no idea what was being said anyway.

 

I eventually found the best method, for when you are a fresh Shanghai barbarian. Get a Chinese friend to tell the driver where you want to go over your mobile phone. They can tell them the best route and say the address in a way as to leave no room for interpretation and might even be able to tell you approximately the price of the fare. If there is a problem with the route or the driver, you can call a friend and after some arguing, sometimes the driver, if they are in the wrong, will not charge you for the fare for fear you will write down their number. There are also great services that send the address in Chinese to your mobile phone for the driver to see. But even when you become adept at dealing with taxi drivers, there are times when the taxi driver still seizes the opportunity to detour, if they notice your lack of attention to the route they are following. If you are busy sending text messages on your phone for instance they may see it as a chance to ‘take the scenic route’. You will look up and realize they have turned down a one way street, that will take you blocks out of your way, down heavily congested streets, giving them those extra 2 or 3 RMB on the meter, not really what you would call a financial setback but definitely a deficit in time spent.

 

Sometimes taxi drivers are not trying to take advantage of you; sometimes they are just grossly incompetent. If you feel like your taxi driver might be purposely getting lost, look at the number on their ID card. If it is a number beginning with a 3, then they are a brand new taxi driver, often imported from the suburbs of Shanghai, who doesn’t know the way yet.  If you are a fresh barbarian, then I suggest you get out and take another taxi. Screaming abuse at a new driver is only going to make them more nervous and you may crash. It seems that taxi drivers often become the target for the venting of passenger frustration - sometimes justified, sometimes not. The one advantage in their lack of English, is that it enables you to rain invective down upon them, using a calm sounding voice, without them having the faintest idea what you are saying - it can be quite therapeutic. For amusement with friends on such journeys, you can say random things to your taxi driver on any subject, whilst giving the driver the thumbs up and smiling. “I want to fondle you.” Etc. Some drivers are very impatient with foreigners and will tell you to get out of the taxi before you have reached your destination if there is communication break down. These tense exchanges can be very surreal. Two people annoyed with one another, yet unable to do anything but raise their voices higher to no avail.

 

For those people with more even tempers and who have started learning Chinese, the majority of taxi drivers in Shanghai, like their counterparts around the world, are generally willing to converse. It can be a great way to practice both speaking and listening. The range of accents will test your ears; from those with beautiful Mandarin, to those whose accents blur the line between Shanghai dialect and Mandarin. They even understand when the conversation languishes, due to your limited barbarian repertoire of vocabulary preventing the discourse from continuing. Sometimes one can feel like a ‘talk-tease’, when you see the driver become involved or excited about what they are talking about and then you just shrug with an embarrassed look and say “bu hao yi si wo ting bu dong” (sorry, I don’t understand).

 

Some taxi drivers however, are best not to talk to at all. Surprisingly many in Shanghai, have breath so bad, that when they open their mouth to speak you scramble for the window to breath.  Combined with the stale remnants of cheap oily meals permeating the taxi and noticeable personal hygiene deficiencies, for some reason this funkiness is more common in the taxis that are red in colour. Each taxi company in Shanghai uses a different colour to distinguish themselves and for some reason, the red taxis are the most dirty and decrepit. Often they will have dark tinted windows, with the tint peeling off, seats that are falling apart and a driver who looks like he may have stolen the taxi or is just filling in for his friend for a few hours. I am told their drivers work ridiculously long shifts. One friend realized that his driver had fallen asleep at the wheel when they were waiting in traffic, as he heard him snoring loudly. The impatient horns of the cars waiting behind, managed to wake him.

 

On the opposite end of the spectrum of taxi transport were those, sort after vehicles, which sported 4 or 5 stars. Many of those drivers had been driving for a very long time and owned their own taxi. I have opened the door to some of these taxis to see seat coverings with lovely floral prints, the car smelling of nice perfume or incense, the dashboard decorated with Buddhist paraphernalia or cherished pictures of loved ones and an advanced stereo system, its function buttons and LCD screen flashing in their attention seeking manner, as soothing classical music is piped over the quality speakers. These ‘super’ taxi drivers often spoke a little English and knew how to decipher the poor pronunciation of some of the worst Shanghai barbarians’ address requests. Rarely have I felt that I needed to police or consequently abuse any of these taxi drivers. Many of them seemed to make a good living as I have chatted to some that have sent their children to Australia to study. These taxi drivers seemed to be a long way from the impoverished, ‘rickshaw coolies’ of early twentieth century colonial Shanghai.

Now, on my second arrival to Shanghai, with passable Chinese and some previous experience with taxis it does not feel like I am a helpless lamb at the hands of devious Shanghai taxi drivers. Now the familiar sound of the taxi's welcoming mechanical voice does not create anxiety within me any more. The beauty of machines in China, is that they are programmed by people. What may appear to have been a superficial nicety, such as a recorded greeting and reminder, is made much more profound by the programmers small mistakes in English, such as their Zen koan, “don’t forget what you take” and the more existential reminder, “don’t forget your belonging.”

On that first night in Shanghai, after being dazzled by the series of Shanghai city lights on the drive from the airport, I climbed out of the Westin shuttle bus and walked towards the ‘Xin Tian Di Club’ I was contracted to. Seeing me arrive with my bags and instruments, a nervous woman with glasses approached me with, “Are you the saxophone player from Australia?”

“Are you the person who was supposed to meet me at the airport?” I questioned, fixing her with a steely look.

“Sorry, my phone ran out of batteries,” and she quickly changed the subject, “Let me introduce you to the Boss.”

I wheeled my luggage over to an outside table. A short Asian man sat on one of the metal chairs smoking a large cigar that looked comically compensatory. “This is Allen,” she introduced, “This is our new saxophone player.”

The short man looked me up and down before even shaking my hand. It was as though he was inspecting suspect goods, for which he felt he had paid too much money.

“How old are you?” he asked.

“25,” I answered

“Too young!” He declared, almost with disgust. “If I had known you were this young I would not have hired you.”

“Oh shit,” I thought…

Questions

What was the strangest taxi ride you have ever had?

Do you fear for your life on a regular basis when catching taxis? Are there many people you know who refuse to sit in the front seat of the taxi?

Can you describe any of the strange smells you have found inside taxis?

Have you been in Shanghai long enough that you can recite the taxi greeting along with the recording?

Can you describe the most strange taxi driver personality you have met?