zaiShanghai

Yuan (緣)

The Chinese con­cept of yuan is not quite fate and not quite serendip­ity. Meeting your part­ner in life is yuan, but so is that every­day hello-goodbye exchange with your cof­fee or baozi ven­dor. Yuan is sim­i­lar to the Western idea of the fabled spark. Fate put a per­son in your way and you embraced and enjoyed the encounter.

Away from Chinese cul­ture it is easy to for­get when yuan hap­pens, but in Shanghai it hap­pens every time you flag down a cab in the moment when the meter starts and your head­phones are still off.

And if you're lucky, in the streets of Shanghai, the forces that be may hand you a jaded flesh-and-blood local. These city-savvy dri­vers may be amongst the first Chinese you meet.

Each ride holds promise, but first think about what your dis­tance allows. Fourteen RMB will buy you small talk. A long jour­ney is what you’re look­ing for, per­haps a ride from Pudong air­port or a mean­der­ing route to a dif­fer­ent dis­trict. Lucky are you who chance upon the dri­ver of 20-plus years, for they have seen the world from behind the wheel. Seen the build­ings grow taller, the traf­fic dete­ri­o­rate, the city  grow. Before the flood of pri­vately owned cars, taxis reigned supreme on the streets, and dri­vers will have you help them relive their glory days.

Finally, there is some­thing com­fort­ing about the finite nature of this yuan–filled meet­ing. If the con­ver­sa­tion goes well, you close the door on a high note. If the con­ver­sa­tion dies quickly, you still find your­self at your des­ti­na­tion. In a city of thou­sands of mer­ce­nary dri­vers, a doomed friend­ship with one need not ruin your day. Cherish the time spent in the safe space of a beaten down four-door sedan, for in it you may find bits of real China.

★★★★

How did your par­ents end up with a daugh­ter like you? You work, you go to school, you vol­un­teer, and you look decent. You going to stay in China? You want to marry my son? He’s a hap­less idiot but his face makes up for it. You’re too good for him but if you want him he’s yours.

—a "four-star" Shanghai cab dri­ver

★★★★

Flagging Down Yuan 招手遇緣

It starts with a fran­tic wave.

The sit­u­a­tion is uncer­tain, treach­er­ous even. Is this one taken?

I stride into the path of oncom­ing traf­fic, putting myself out there, let­ting myself pos­si­bly get hurt. "Read the sig­nals," I say to myself, "look closely for the tell tale signs of inter­est. There are always more fish in the sea, but hook­ing this one would make life that much eas­ier."

The front wheels turn my way.…

There is an air of non­cha­lance about taxi dri­vers in Shanghai that defies all logic. In a city where migrants work daily for peanuts, cabs seem to pass up fares with­out a sec­ond thought. Perhaps it is because they know that since the roads have end­lessly eso­teric, or cen­tral, plan­ning, pedes­tri­ans are lost with­out their fare-collecting shep­herds. The light indi­cat­ing “free” or “taken” is to me for­ever a mys­tery. During drunken hunts for trans­porta­tion, the sig­nal is like a mirage that eas­ily tempts 16 RMB out of even the tight­est wal­let.

Ten min­utes going on 15, three luck­less inter­sec­tions, dozens of already-engaged taxis. Such are the French Concession nights that shake my faith in urban order. Every change of traf­fic light brings a fresh crop of vehi­cles, a new wave of poten­tial. I scan for the deceit­ful cab light; dis­ap­point­ment sets in as the last cab in a pack zips by. Frustration builds to the point where you just want to call it a night, but then you remem­ber this, too, demands hired help.

When a cab dri­ver finally takes mercy and slows, relief hits like a Shanghai scooter col­li­sion. Forgotten are the myr­iad rejec­tions of the night, focus set­tles on the here, now, and where to.

The Star System: In Search of Five-Star Excellence

★

Those stars don’t mean any­thing, any com­pany can give you a star or two. Are you wor­ried that I’m going to get you lost? One star, two star, not a dif­fer­ence in the world.

—a "one-star" Shanghai cab dri­ver

★

Shanghai, that global hub of qual­ity assur­ance and con­trol, ranks its taxi­cab dri­vers. If the slot below the name of the dri­ver is empty, put your guard up as you have just encoun­tered a zero-star cab­bie. The top grade is log­i­cally 5-star, but as the urban leg­ends go, there is the fabled 6-star trans­port.

Before rank­ing hap­pens, you might won­der what it takes exactly to be a taxi­cab dri­ver in this mas­sive city. In New York, I myself only have a driver's per­mit, and so with no actual under­stand­ing of road eti­quette I am bliss­fully unaware of all but the most heinous traf­fic offenses. A cou­ple of mul­ti­ple choice prob­lems on a 20-minute exam pre­pares you to drive before sun­down and to be able to relax in Shanghai trans­port.

I’ve gath­ered from my time here that the first step after learn­ing how to drive is to take a writ­ten test for a city-issued ser­vice card. There seem to be very few peo­ple who fail to achieve this, which no doubt speaks to the rigor of the exam­i­na­tion. Then, what’s left is to apply for a job with one of the big pri­vate taxi com­pa­nies and get part­nered for shared used of a vehi­cle. Fifteen days of the month, one can be the proud dri­ver of a Volkswagen Passat or Santana, col­ored teal, red, white or yel­low. You might even luck into an "Expo" mini­van.

?

You mean my license? That’s get­ting renewed. Renewed I’m telling you. It’s not a big deal, I’ll have it back in a bit, and it’s just for the month. And no, I haven’t been drinking…that smell is from the last guy I picked up…

—Twitching dri­ver with­out a ser­vice card

?

The star sys­tem is based on expe­ri­ence, ser­vice record, and sup­pos­edly, the abil­ity so speak English. The logic behind it seems a lit­tle strange con­sid­er­ing how unlikely it is that a fresh-off-the-boat for­eigner will chance upon a rare five-star cab in times of need.

I have seen only one myself, stum­bling home late at night: a cab marked clearly with a neon five-star sign. Rushing for­ward, I was cut off and over­taken by a wob­bling expat and set­tled for three-star cab next in the rank.

Practically speak­ing, how­ever, there seems to be no sig­nif­i­cance to the sys­tem. Few peo­ple notice the ser­vice card, and even fewer com­muters bother to con­cern them­selves about the sup­pos­edly hard-earned stars. Like so many other rat­ing sys­tems in China the cor­re­la­tion between score and real­ity seems loose at best—ever been to an AAAAAAA tourist site? Whiffed the five-star bath­room in the Forbidden City? Still, I keep faith and hope that one day I'll dis­cover a flu­ent five-star English speaker behind the wheel tak­ing me safely on the short­est route and per­haps even open­ing the door for me before wish­ing me well on my way.

Lunch Break: Stalking the Cabbie Community in Shanghai

Every time I antic­i­pate car rides of over two hours I begin to strate­gize my water con­sump­tion. Especially in China, bath­rooms present a tricky sit­u­a­tion. How does one strike the bal­ance of min­i­miz­ing dis­com­fort from need­ing to go but at the same time, max­i­mize water in-take so as to avoid a dehy­dra­tion headache?

For cab dri­vers this is a trade-off that has to be made every work­day. One would think that in their sit­u­a­tion caf­feine would be taboo. Water with caf­feine? A dou­ble whammy cause for potty runs. And yet, it’s so often there in the form of tea. Just look to the driver’s seat and find it tucked some­where within arm’s reach of the dri­ver, tempt­ing a sip now and again.

The ques­tion is how to relieve it all. My search for cab­bie rest spots was com­pa­ra­ble to find­ing the perches of city pigeons. They are every­where and yet dis­ap­pear into urban nooks and cran­nies when nature calls. Feeding habits are also not eas­ily observ­able as they often stray away from city cen­ter to places more obscure and per­haps suit­able to their bud­gets.

Ask enough, how­ever, and you shall receive. I began to col­lect reg­u­lar sight­ings where Guyang Lu and Gubei Lu meet and where it turns out a clus­ter of small restau­rants cater to the hun­gry mem­bers of the taxi fleets. Why go? a friend asks me. Why bother with the lives of sim­ple dri­vers? I tell him the inter­est is organic and uncon­di­tional. I can't help myself. This is the odd fas­ci­na­tion that I have cul­ti­vated in China. More note­wor­thy per­haps would be the plight of migrant chil­dren, yes, and more juicy sto­ries found in neon-lit mas­sage par­lors, but no, for me, there's noth­ing quite like nice chat with a cab dri­ver.

I go to the inter­sec­tion. Indeed, restau­rants. I walk about, won­der­ing how to go about this. This is it I guess. For peo­ple who work 20 hours or so a day I’m sure they could spare me a frac­tion of an hour.

But wait. How much of the cab expe­ri­ence is a func­tion of both man and car? I panic a bit, mostly because I feel fool­ish approach­ing them. The plas­tic screen, the meter clicks, the chance encoun­ters. Isn’t it the yuan and expe­ri­ence that makes every­thing so spe­cial? I look into a restau­rant.

Let them eat in peace I say, and con­tent myself by look­ing afar, a silent salute of appre­ci­a­tion and respect every time I see the cab­bie rush out the car, hus­tling into a pub­lic bath­room.

★★★

What are you doing ask­ing about cab dri­vers, aren’t you a busi­ness stu­dent and going places? There’s noth­ing to know about us, we’re a bunch of guys who made the wrong deci­sion but we’re stuck dri­ving because roads are all we know.

—a "three-star" Shanghai cab dri­ver

★★★

Cab Sage 有緣相教

Depending on the traf­fic, board­ing your cab is some­times quite an ungrace­ful ordeal. Amidst the honks and the bikes, one learns the char­ac­ter­is­tic hasty shuf­fle.

Finally seated, the jour­ney begins when the dri­ver slaps the meter. Behind the plas­tic pane of pro­tec­tion, he (and occa­sion­ally she) is obscured like a priest dur­ing con­fes­sion. He dri­ves, judg­ing you, judg­ing the world, and prof­fers advice. Come, lost child, tell me where you need to go and I shall offer you direc­tion.

The voice from the dri­ver seat departs with great secrets: the best routes to take, cough reme­dies, gov­ern­ment poli­cies to ignore, men to date. The mys­tery is where all this knowl­edge orig­i­nates. My expe­ri­ence is that much of the polit­i­cal com­men­tary is rehashed infor­ma­tion from the radio—one unseen voice inspir­ing another. The more talk­a­tive dri­vers on this sub­ject will be heard lis­ten­ing to what we would com­pare to NPR. (If a dri­ver is bob­bing his head to Cantopop, might I advise a few grains of salt with his sage advice?)

★

Why the hell wouldn’t China want American to sell Taiwan mis­siles? Let Obama sell the damn things. Taiwan and China are going to be together again any­way, guess what’s going to hap­pen then? We’re going to take those same mis­siles, and we’re going to bomb the US. Actually if I was the pres­i­dent, you know what would go first? Little Japan.

—a "one-star" Shanghai cab dri­ver

★

The ori­gins of anyone's remarks about "life" are anyone’s guess, though I note that most of what I hear about "life" from Shanghai cab­bies is col­ored by tones of envy and res­ig­na­tion. Monotonous rounds about Shanghai on the sur­face seem to hold scarcely any excite­ment. The roads become only a means to a des­ti­na­tion, and the build­ings and mon­u­ments per­haps only the point B to a point A. How many dri­vers of Expo cabs saw the inside of the China Pavilion? Yet some­how con­ver­sa­tions are filled with opin­ions. An American per­spec­tive on board pro­vides them with food for thought, and in turn they pro­vide you with time-tested Chinese wis­dom, tai­lored to the dura­tion of your ride, but always the ses­sion ends with a beep, remind­ing you that time costs money.

★★

Going to Gansu? Miss, don’t go hand­ing money to peo­ple just because they’re poor. Over there, it’s going to be poverty like you’ve never seen, but don’t, don’t give them money. You have a good heart lit­tle girl, but that’s not what you need to do.

—a "two-star" Shanghai cab dri­ver

★★

It is 4:00 AM.

The hot water runs over the tea leaves. The invis­i­ble caf­feine begins to steep and swirl in the glass. This jar once held instant cof­fee, but for the past month it has been hous­ing multi-brew oolong. There is a middle-aged man start­ing his first brew of the day, care­fully dust­ing more high-mountain oolong for an extra kick of fla­vor and energy.

“Already late. Better get going.” He says this to no one, or per­haps to his son, who has his head down on the kitchen table, cra­dled by a book. High school stress can really bog a mind down, but cre­ativ­ity be damned, this boy is going to have some real Chinese-style char­ac­ter, and for­tune willing—a real American-style income.

With some unheated buns and tea in tow, he heads off to his bread-winning part­ner. The cab is an opti­mistic sky blue, pil­ing on mileage, and avail­able to him only every other day. This was his Black Beauty of yes­ter­year, faith­fully await­ing the coach­man and ardu­ous shift. Transportation for hire seems to have barely reformed over the years, a proud tra­di­tion of over­work. He plops down in his seat and swaps out his colleague’s ser­vice card for his own. The card is old, and the pic­ture even older. Xiao Chiang it reads, accom­pa­nied by a pic­ture of a black-haired, fresh-faced dri­ver of 25.

Firing up the engine, the radio too comes to life. He hears the famil­iar voice and laments for a moment how much time he spends with it. In truth, polit­i­cal com­men­ta­tors prob­a­bly had more to offer him any­way. He was a man of learn­ing, and as learned men do, he always put on the news. Life was mind-numbing enough dri­ving in cir­cles, it didn’t need to par­a­lyze with new-age for­eign pop.

He him­self was Shanghainese. How could an out-of-province novice ever hope to mas­ter the streets and alleys? Though in truth, even if they could, they had lit­tle hope of suc­cess­fully reg­is­ter­ing for a ser­vice card. This was an exclu­sive career. He grew up in the out­skirts, close to Minhang dis­trict, away from the glossy recent expan­sion, but close enough to know how to drive the grid roads of Pudong.

His phone ran sud­denly and he didn’t slow to pick up the call. 15 years of dri­ving, 5 years of dri­ving with a mobile device, not a sin­gle scratch. It was early any­way; no one was around to catch him.

It was a call to Hongqiao. He took a sip of tea. Paced sips of course. He wasn’t too far from the hotel and Hongqiao at this hour was prob­a­bly his best bet for qual­ity fares. He tried to remem­ber if flights were com­ing in from Hong Kong at this hour. It would be smart to check.

“EV9302. On my way.”

It is 4:00 AM.

The concierge rings for morn­ing call: an auto­mated mes­sage tells the woman to wake up in Chinese and in English. In both lan­guages, the mes­sage is received mis­er­ably. A grunt, a yawn, and a roll brings her out of bed and into the posh hotel bath­room. She sud­denly embraces a wave of nau­sea. Maybe nights before flights aren’t meant for Chinese hos­pi­tal­ity.

On the two-week-long busi­ness trip, she had toured fac­to­ries and newly con­structed offices. She was in man­u­fac­tur­ing and oper­a­tions, which was a clear career path to Asia, the land of exploited labor. China was the go-to for now, but if the have-nots begin to want glory through wealth, it would be time to move south. For now, in China it would all stay, power on, cap­i­tal­ism.

To the very bit­ter end, every din­ner involved China’s spirit of choice, bai­jou. Five thou­sand years of glo­ri­ous his­tory, and some­how no improve­ment in the ways to ine­bri­ate one­self. The Chinese peo­ple clearly have their pri­or­i­ties straight—writing, gun­pow­der, com­pass, and nan­otech leaves no room for friv­o­lity.

This all gave her per­sonal life very lit­tle breath­ing room. Let’s just say few peo­ple, fewer men, were will­ing able to buy enough transat­lantic tick­ets to make a rela­tion­ship with her “worth” it. She rea­soned with her­self that she was young, too young to be think­ing that any of this mat­tered. She had friends from her more sta­tion­ary days, that would tide her over to her next period of sta­bil­ity.

By now her stom­ach was empty and her mind slightly clearer. She strolls over to the phone to call a cab off to Hongqiao.  She still had to drop by Guangzhou before she fin­ished her tour of China. Maybe the Southerners had bet­ter taste in alco­hol.

“I need to leave in 15 min­utes for Hongqiao, can you have a cab ready?”

“Absolutely Ms. Guo, it will ready by that time.”

“Thank you.”

Thankfully her things were packed from before din­ner. Packing under-the-influence didn’t strike her as par­tic­u­larly intel­li­gent. She was sad to leave the immac­u­late hotel, but two weeks in the main­land with the shov­ing, the lack of breath­ing room was get­ting to be too much. She pre­ferred New York pigeons and sub­way filth.

It was time for check out.

Back on the cab, Xiao had finally caught sight of the hotel, then the baggage-laden woman.

“Miss Guo to Hongqiao Airport?” It wouldn't mat­ter if she spoke Chinese; Hongqiao was small and man­age­able enough with­out direc­tions. You never knew these days in Shanghai. She could be Shanghainese born and raised…or she could be a clas­sic banana, all Americana on the inside.

“Right, could you help me with my lug­gage? I have quite a bit.” She was well-dressed, busi­ness casual, but a bit flus­tered. She had match­ing pieces of lug­gage, which he assumed were real, too bad the trunk was less than spot­less. Her Chinese had an ABC fla­vor, but it would do for the next half-hour. She was already in the back­seat when the trunk finally snapped close.

“When’s your depar­ture?”

“9:00, there should be time enough.”

He tapped the meter and the 12-yuan sign lit up.

“Where are you from?” a voice piped up.

“Shanghai local. Not from your part of town, but around. I bet you wouldn’t know it.”

“You’re right, I barely know where I am at any given time of the day. I feel lost being here… I guess you’re not famil­iar with the feel­ing.”

“Not for years.”

“I like Shanghai, but it’ll be nice to go home.”

“Where is that?”

“New York by way of Hong Kong, but I’m not in home base for that long at a time any­how.”

It all seemed to make sense then, the influ­ence of Cantonese and English into­na­tions made for quite an exotic resul­tant Mandarin. He glanced at the rearview mir­ror; she was sharply dressed, per­haps too much so for a plane, but what did he know, he hadn’t been on one.

“How long have you been dri­ving?”

Too long he wanted to say, but instead he answered, “15 years.” This girl was talk­a­tive, even at 6:00 in the morn­ing.

“I guess I don’t have to worry about get­ting lost. China must have changed a lot since you started on the road.”

“A lot more roads to remem­ber, more still to for­get.”

He made a sharp brake at the sight of scoot­ers. She inhaled sharply, but quickly com­posed her­self. On cue, her phone beeped for atten­tion. It was fol­lowed by some nods, clas­sic polite responses, a click and a sigh.

“I have a job.”

“As do I.”

“Like you, I have one in Shanghai now.”

“You don’t sound as happy as you ought to. I can also tell you now that you’re going the wrong direc­tion*.” The meter was at 38 RMB, almost to the flashy new sec­ond ter­mi­nal.

“My post would be in a month. I can’t say I was expect­ing this, maybe I should have thick­ened the American accent, less­ened the appeal of being head­hunted.”

Plenty thick as is. “I take it you’re not a fan of where I work.”

She hes­i­tated, for­mu­lat­ing a diplo­matic answer in her head. She looked out the win­dow, turned back and answered in a res­olute tone.

“I could like it, I might like it, but why should I chance it?”

There was a pause. She con­tin­ued to look out the win­dow, a men­tal bat­tle of resis­tance ensu­ing.

“I guess being in a mov­ing cubi­cle doesn’t make me the most qual­i­fied to advise you on the topic.” His tone was patient and con­ver­sa­tional, his hands deftly han­dling the wheel going into the final turn. The meter read 50 RMB. “I spend my life on one grid. The biggest chal­lenge I will get today is avoid­ing a cou­ple of elderly pedes­tri­ans. Every day is dif­fer­ent and every day is the same. You may find change unin­ter­est­ing and at every cor­ner, but some­times past the cor­ner is just another road.”

He con­tin­ued after a short break. “Besides, wouldn’t it be nice to stay still for a bit?”

From his obscured view, he saw that she had nod­ded and turned her head towards the win­dow. Finally, they pulled up at the ter­mi­nal; the total was 64 RMB, a good fare to start the day with. She dug her hand into her bag, slowly pulling out stray RMB notes and coins. He noticed she didn’t have a ring.

“Think I should keep the rest of the Renminbi? Or should I intro­duce you to the American sys­tem of tip­ping.”

“I would say tip me, but I have a feel­ing you’ll be back. Who knows, the RMB might even appre­ci­ate.” He handed her back the change and stepped out to pop open the trunk. The black three-piece lug­gage set had com­pleted the jour­ney, though def­i­nitely worse for wear hav­ing *come to through* Chinese cus­toms. Now that they were all on the side­walk, he sad­dled up again, ready to join the line to pick up the Hong Kong arrivals. Suddenly there was a light tap on the glass.

He scrolled down the win­dow. “Did you for­get any­thing? I’m about to pick up your Hong Kong com­pa­tri­ots.”

“I just wanted to thank you. In New York we pay hun­dreds for this kind of coun­sel­ing.”

“That pre­mium can still be arranged.”

“Maybe next time. I’ll call your dis­patch if I’m back in a month. See you around, EV9302.”

“I share the cab with a part­ner, so you have a 50–50 chance.”

“Better than noth­ing.”

With that she carted off her things. He con­tin­ued on to the next taxi-line, won­der­ing if what he said ruined her chances at some kind of domes­tic bliss. Shanghai was neon lights and promise, but it was also per­pet­ual life in the rat race. But then again, for­eign­ers had a bet­ter time in this city.

With that part­ing thought, he con­tin­ues on with his 19-hour cir­cuit any­how. Sixty-four RMB will only buy you so much sym­pa­thy.

Second Hand Yuan 二手緣份

Shanghai’s his­tory as the win­dow to the West has cul­ti­vated a most vibrant com­mu­nity of expa­tri­ates. They walk what were once polit­i­cal con­ces­sions, now lined with Western icons of expan­sion like Kentucky Fried Chicken and Starbucks. In this bub­ble of inter­na­tion­als, they write home with their insights into China—the hor­ren­dous traf­fic, greasy food, and oppres­sive regime. Looking into the har­mo­nious soci­ety through a warped bub­ble sur­face, with English sub­ti­tles, some­thing just seems to be miss­ing.

Then a pop.

Somehow the plas­tic wrap-around cubi­cle is less obtru­sive than a lan­guage bar­rier. Maybe it is the fact that con­ver­sa­tions in a taxi­cab aren’t actu­ally face-to-face, or maybe peo­ple are inher­ently uncom­fort­able with the silence that fills the time. Whatever magic it is that hap­pens when peo­ple are con­fined to the back­seats of cars, it has cre­ated a wealth of sto­ries that expats keep in their reper­toires of China tales.

Bucket List Check

She was in the lobby, cold and shiv­er­ing because she decided there was no time for a jacket. Her friend had called her with news of a five-star cab, mak­ing its way to her apart­ment. It was a slew of medi­oc­rity dur­ing her three months in Shanghai: three-star, no star, even no bloody ser­vice card. She needed to know if the five-star cab­bie really knew what’s up.

It was here, in all its Expo glory. Promising. She hugged her friend before she took her place at the pas­sen­ger seat.

“This is the best present any­one could have got­ten me.”

“I hope this is every­thing you ever hoped and dreamed of.” He walked off with a shake of his head a bemused smile.

She stepped into the pas­sen­ger seat and turned her head with force­ful deter­mi­na­tion.

“This is going to be a very unusual request. I notice you have five stars.” This was fol­lowed by some­thing of a bewil­dered silence; he had a friendly face, now filled with curi­ous antic­i­pa­tion.

I con­tin­ued on. “I need you to drive me in cir­cles. I need to talk to you.”

“We can talk here if it’s just a cou­ple of ques­tions. I don’t want to charge you.”

“This is going to be a waste of your time, so drive.”

The meter hes­i­tantly clicked. Twelve RMB.

Discovery made under the Yan’an Elevated: it takes three incident-less years to qual­ify for the three-star exam, two more clean years after that to test for the four-star, and two addi­tional years to pick up the final star.

Discovery made around Zhongshan Park: the four cor­ners of the star-exam are basic knowl­edge of local tourist sites, sim­ple mechanic repairs, every­day English phrases, and know­ing the ten­ants of cab code.

Discovery made on the way home…

“Is there a six-star cab?”

With a chuckle, “no miss, no stars past five.”

Damn.

“Its been a plea­sure miss, take my card, good bye and call me if you need a ride to Pudong.” He hands it over.

As Chairman Mao taught us:        “Serve the peo­ple”     ★★★★★

The Prince of Xinjiang

“Those were some hard days in Urumqi.”

He was alone on the cab with another ten min­utes to kill.

“My father sold kebabs for years. 1 RMB a kebab, then 2 RMB a kebab…we’ve come a long way.” He ges­tured for good mea­sure, one hand empha­siz­ing the num­bers, one hand pre­tend­ing to wave around a skewer. He flat­tened the tones on his Chinese to make it all the more believ­able.

The cab dri­ver is caught up in the drama. “Your Chinese is very good…I thought you were either a mixed per­son or Uyghur.”

“My par­ents are both from Xinjiang, but they even­tu­ally sold enough kebabs to make it to America.” He looked at him­self in the rearview mir­ror, his dri­ver look­ing back. He looked pale…his German side was show­ing. But he was con­fi­dent. The Uyghur roy­alty rou­tine was too easy by now.

“My good­ness. How many kebabs must that have been.”

“Who knows? It was a small oper­a­tion, but now it’s more like an enter­prise, an empire—in America. My sis­ter, she knows noth­ing but kebab wealth.”

“Who knew hum­ble lamb kebabs could go so far.”

“Not so hum­ble any­more, my father is known affec­tion­ately as the kebab king.”

“Then am I in the pres­ence of the kebab prince?”

“I sup­pose you can think of it that way.”

An awed silence ensued.

He con­tem­plated the idea of all the kebab stands form­ing his own pri­vate army. They were sup­pos­edly on pay­roll any­way. Which would be the more for­mi­da­ble? The Halal carts of New York or the Kebab ven­dors of Beijing?

“Excuse me…sir? Card or cash?” The voice from behind the pane sud­denly cour­te­ous.

Deciding that the wooden skew­ers could do more vio­lence than hot sauce, he hands over the cash.

“Don’t worry about the change.” 2 RMB for­feited for his façade.

He stepped out and started laugh­ing. His friend soon walks over to meet him.

“It worked again?”

“Hook, line, and sinker.”

“Now just get it to work on a girl.  They have to stop think­ing you’re a fuck­ing sep­a­ratist.”

Stumble to Learn

“For the love of God, don’t you two know your lim­its?”

He says this, sit­ting in the pas­sen­ger seat, his two friends in the back pro­jec­tile vom­it­ing out the two win­dows. At least they’re using the win­dows?

“I swear, it’s the alco­hol, I told you if the label is printed upside down…” another wave of nau­sea stops his friend to his left.

To the right, the vomit seems to have mer­ci­fully paused. He is still groggy.

“Haven’t we been here already?”

“Of course we have you idiot, we live like, 5 min­utes from here.” The voice of rea­son from the pas­sen­ger seat, back again.

“Don’t call me an idiot you dum­b­ass, my head’s been out this win­dow for the last half-hour, and I must’ve seen that same build­ing three times.”

Wait. What?

“Besides, how long have we been on this fuck­ing cab?” He con­vulses again and the win­dow is down.

The meter reads 46 RMB. Shit.

“Hey man. Can you just drive us home? No hard feel­ings.”

“Dude, he doesn’t speak English.”

“Dude, I don’t speak Chinese, get us the fuck home.”

One of the two in the back recov­ers enough to mum­ble some Chinese. The dri­ver remains oddly silent, his expres­sion mild and mostly unchanged. Finally, the green light, he nods his head.

Another five min­utes later and they were home, the back seat pas­sen­gers still weak in the knees. They stum­ble out of the cab like Bambi learn­ing to walk. The inflated tab had hit 60 RMB.

Suddenly, the driver’s side win­dow scrolls down. He says some­thing in Chinese and goes on his way again.

“What did he say? Did he apol­o­gize or some­thing?”

His friend starts to laugh.

“He said…haha, I guess we deserved this one, he said, ‘it’s for your own good.’”

Ouch.

Permission Granted

He dodges quick, so quick in fact that his head makes con­tact with the win­dow. Thud.

“Are you kid­ding me?” The girl is vis­i­bly miffed. The two of them are in the back­seat of the cab, and she had tried to kiss him.

“The poor dri­ver doesn’t need to see this.”

“If the dri­ver is pay­ing atten­tion to the back seat instead of the front win­dow, I think we have big­ger con­cerns than your sense of pro­pri­ety.”

She leans in again, eyes closed. She comes in con­tact with a high five in the face. Smack.

“I think you should stop.”

“I think you should chill the fuck out.”

They sit in silence, both in mild annoy­ance. The rain is beat­ing down on the win­dow, the rain­drops a nice dis­trac­tion from the polar­iz­ing sen­ti­ments in the cab. She had no shame when it came to pub­lic dis­plays of affec­tion in front of strangers. At the same time it was noth­ing too sac­cha­rine, noth­ing too unrea­son­able, or at least that’s how she inter­preted it.

Suddenly the girl sits up straight, clears her throat and switches over to Chinese.

“Sir? Do you mind if I kiss this gen­tle­man?”

“Excuse me?”

“For your sake sir, my date thinks it highly improper if I kiss him, but I would like to. I was hop­ing you would be alright with that.”

“Just a kiss?”

“Just a kiss.”

“Why the hell not.” From focus­ing on the rearview mir­ror he shifted his gaze back to the road. Rainy days make for rain soaked roads; this was no doubt for the best.

“See? He doesn’t mind.”

“You’re ridicu­lous you know that?” His tone is resigned by now.

She moves in one more time. Eyes open. The kiss is a suc­cess.

“That wasn’t so bad was it?” She says this as her hand smoothes over his knee, and fur­ther…

“I dare you to ask him about this.”

Parting Wisdom

The boyfriend is asleep. The girl­friend sit­ting qui­etly beside him. She had given the direc­tions con­sid­er­ing her date was in no state to speak. The win­dow was down in case, but he was life­less.

From the rearview mir­ror the dri­ver could see that the girl was cry­ing qui­etly. She looked ahead, one hand on the back of her boyfriend, mov­ing in smooth, firm cir­cles on his back. She would turn occa­sion­ally to whis­per things to him in English, her words lost on every­one in the cab but her. She then addressed the dri­ver.

“He had a bit much to drink, but I’m sure he won’t dirty your cab.”

“Alright miss, we’ll be back soon.” It was rare that he made con­ver­sa­tion with his pas­sen­gers, but he decided maybe this time it would help. “Are you alright?”

“I’m doing okay. Isn’t it bet­ter to be cry­ing on the back of a car than happy on the back of a bicy­cle? I’m told that’s the Chinese pref­er­ence.”

“Not for every­one, but Shanghai will do that to peo­ple.”

She was silent for a lit­tle bit more. She rubbed her eyes and rid them of some mois­ture.

“Earlier today. I was sit­ting in the pas­sen­ger seat of another cab.” She breathed in to com­pose her­self. “We bumped into a scooter right in front of my build­ing.”

“I see that you’re okay.”

“It wasn’t too seri­ous. My friends in the back were fine as well. This idiot was on another cab but saw the col­li­sion. I paid and left.” She ges­tured to the sleep­ing boy.

“The first thing he asked me was whether or not I had his cell phone with me.” She hic­cupped. “You can imag­ine that I was a lit­tle hurt and dis­ap­pointed.”

He nod­ded, think­ing it was bet­ter not to speak quite yet. She con­tin­ued on.

“And now here I am, bring­ing him home because he couldn’t fig­ure out how much to drink. I seem to be more con­cerned about whether or not he has a hang over than he is con­cerned about my phys­i­cal safety.” She started to cry in earnest now. “How is that fair?”

“I guess it isn’t miss. I’m sorry this is why you’re in my car right now.”

She laughed weakly. “I bet you don’t have to deal with this too often.”

“Better some tears than a drunken mess. You’re almost there.”

He was right; they turned into the apart­ment com­pound. She paid and gen­tly woke her com­pan­ion up. Before he actu­ally came to, the cab­driver, hand­ing back the change, whis­pered:

“Just leave him…on the street next time.”

She nod­ded, and then slowly maneu­vered out of the cab, with a wet smile she mouthed her thanks and left.