CABnapped!

Being in a foreign country where you don't speak the language, can't read the signs, and don't have a map can be a stressful experience. I get lost a lot even in my home town. I've been known to spend hours wandering around a parking lot looking for a trail head and more than once I've had to rely on my GPS to get me home from the local Home Depot. So, I was thankful that when I arrived in Shanghai one of my co-workers tried to make my commute as stress free as possible. She met me in the hotel lobby Monday morning and showed me how to get to the subway, where to exit, catch a cab, and even gave me a little laminated map with an address in Chinese so I could get to work the rest of the week on my own. All I had to do was hand my little map to the cab driver and say "thank you" in Mandarin, which is the only thing I remember how to say from my lessons so many years ago. It seemed to work for Helen on Monday (she even used my little map), so I decided it couldn't be too hard. Just don't lose the map, I thought to myself. Losing items is another hobby of mine, by the way. All day I checked my pocket over and over to make sure I still had it. I'd practice handing it to an invisible cab driver and saying "thank you!" That way I'd be ready for my first cab ride in Shanghai all by myself. Like a big boy.

How hard could it be, right?

Well, it could be a lot harder than I thought. When I got into the cab on Tuesday morning I handed my little map to the cabby and said "thank you," just like I had practised a dozen times the day before, that morning, and on the subway just a few moments earlier. He replied with something that sounded like "how how how." I remembered right away from my lessons this meant "yeah yeah yeah." No problem he was telling me, and off we went. Horn honking, fist shaking, and voice yelling, we flew down the street, side-walk, and even through blocked off construction zones. I'd never seen anybody drive like this before but, then again, he obviously knew where he was going. We pulled up to to a curb in the center of an empty business park about 15 minutes later and the driver spoke the only English word in his vocabulary.

"OUT!" It was at this point I discovered that "how how how" actually translates to something more like "I don't know where you're trying to go, Round Eye, but I'm going to drop you off in the middle of nowhere and let you get eaten by the stray dogs so I can take all of your money!" That's a rough translation, but I think it's accurate enough for the purposes of my situation.

This abandoned business park was not where I wanted to be. It might have been close, but I had no way of knowing. I vaguely remembered what the building looked like yesterday, but I had been so focused on practising my "hand over the little map and say thank you" routine that I hadn't paid enough attention to it. That was my mistake, and I'll take full blame for that. As this was all going through my head the cabby was getting impatient. I suppose he had places to be and other tourists to feed to the dogs. From the front seat came another loud "OUT!" and this time I replied.

"No, I don't think this is right. Can you look at the map again?" This time I spoke in English and once again handed him the map. He must have interpreted this as a rude gesture because he started yelling, probably telling me once again about the rabid stray dogs that wouldn't be hungry for much longer. I wasn't about to get out of the cab which had now become a lifeboat vital to my survival. Raising my voice over his, I shouted that I was "an American and he couldn't just go around feeding us to dogs as he saw fit." This continued back and forth for a few minutes, each time with louder voices than before until we both realised that we had no hope of resolving this conflict because I had not done my homework and learned Mandarin before my arrival. Again, my fault and I accept the blame for that, but I hardly think I deserve to be fed to a hungry pack of rabid stray dogs. So we stopped yelling.

I stared at him.

He stared at me.

And there was silence.

For a long time there was silence as we stared at each other. Eventually I called Helen, my co-worker who gave me the little map, and explained to her that I thought the cabby was lost and would she please give him the directions. She said she would so I handed the phone to the driver, and she began explaining to him why he couldn't hold me for ransom. The whole process began to rewind itself at this point. First there was silence, then violent yelling fading into elevated voices, and finally a bit of sidewalk construction zone driving. Barking from the hungry pack of rabid vampire dogs faded away and as we came around a corner on two wheels I saw Helen and my heart leapt. She was diving into the street for safety (we were on the lawn coming through some hedges in what was either a shortcut or pedestrian target practice).

This played out every morning of my commute in Shanghai, and by the last day I had revised the process a bit. I'd get into the cab, hand over my little map, tell the driver "thank you," wait for his "yeah, okay, no problem," and call Helen. It had all become a mundane part of my morning routine like brushing my teeth or putting on my shoes. Who's afraid of a hungry pack of rabid vampire dogs anyway?