Today I met two friends at Starbucks.  We each did exactly the same thing: assume.  I assumed that someone else would be able to give me a lift home.  So did both my friends.  We all live in a protected bubble: we have a car and driver to take us where we want to go. Today, we all dismissed our drivers once we arrived at Starbucks, counting on each other to give us a lift home.  Ooops, forced adventure.

The driver issue is not as clear cut as you might think.  I, for one, am all for having someone else drive me everywhere I go. This, and having someone else clean my toilets, is a luxury I can embrace without reservation.  Others are not so comfortable with the situation.  [The reasons we have drivers are pretty clear cut: driving in China is batshit crazy, but labor in the form of a human to serve you all day is crazy cheap.  If a Chinese person mows down another Chinese person on the street, no one blinks an eye.  The larger, louder occupant of the road always has the right-of-way here.  But if an American were to mow down a Chinese person, I don't even want to think about the consequences.] The extra baggage in the chauffeur-driven car is considerable: a relationship with someone who may or may not speak English.  The expats here interact with their drivers on a whole range of levels.  Some adore them and treat them like family; some do exactly the opposite.

Some folks have drivers who can barely speak English, barely drive, and have zero social graces. Ugh.  Like Monica's driver.  He was run out of our apartment building recently for washing his hair in the public bathroom and loitering in the lobby.  He didn't have the good sense to go quietly, but instead opted to argue with the staff.  Rather than cultivating friends and connections, which are everything in China, he constantly chooses to irritate everyone in his vicinity.

My friend Julie has a nice driver who speaks pretty good English.  But Julie hates having someone all up in her bid'ness.  Zhang hovers and pounces when she exits a store.  He grabs the grocery bags from her hands and treats her like an invalid.  He's chatty and wants to know shit.  Simple shit that I tell my driver, like "My teacher's mother is sick today, so I am going to Starbucks."  Julie hates making this kind of gossipy chatter with the driver, but she feels a sense of guilt when she is short with him.  She is torn between making the driver her confidante and protecting her own privacy.  As an act of rebellion, she surreptitiously takes taxis!  Zhang was dispatched today mostly to get him out of her hair.

All the drivers are hustling for extra money in the form of overtime. Some are pushy about it and some are outright cheats.  They log extra hours not worked on their time sheets and hope that you go along, or just don't notice.  Many expats are uncomfortable with the pressure to log lots of hours in the car, either legit or illegit.  Ewa's driver recently tried to cheat by adding hours to his timesheet and a perfectly good relationship with her was blown.  Still, she let him go today when he said his great-grandmother had died.  We laughed at the thought of how many remaining great-grandparents he might have!

But our driver is awesome. My husband and Qi Tong Lin are freakishly well-suited to one another: low-key, good sense of humor, very mature.  We specifically requested a driver who could speak good Chinese, not English.  We wanted to learn Chinese, but the last thing we wanted to do was learn a redneck dialect.  Jimmy and Qi Tong Lin are pals.  Jimmy's Chinese is constantly improving and Qi Tong Lin is a better teacher than Jimmy's current paid tutor, who has an accent something like this:

 Famous comedian Zhao Ben Shan, whose Liaoning Province accent sounds like he poured a box a rocks into his mouth before speaking

I occasionally tire of making chit-chat with Qi Tong Lin, because my Chinese is shitty.  We have a lot of conversations where he speaks Chinese and I reply in English.  We know each other's comprehension levels and this works amazingly well.  Jimmy often takes Qi Tong Lin on errands where the scenario goes something like this: Jimmy explains question to Qi Tong Lin in simple Chinese, Qi Tong Lin explains question to clerk in fluent Chinese, clerk responds to Qi Tong Lin in fluent Chinese, and finally, Qi Tong Lin explains clerk's response to Jimmy in simple Chinese.  Not a word of English is spoken, but Qi Tong Lin is the necessary translator.  You'd be shocked to know how many Chinese people don't understand that if they'd just SLOW THE FUCK DOWN I could understand them!  

Qi Tong Lin speaks slow, simple Chinese to me and I respond to him in slow, simple English.  He and I have managed to bond and share plenty of laughs.  Like the time we saw four (4!) grown men on one motorcycle and he taught me the Chinese word for "acrobat."  I don't think of him as family yet, but he is pretty light baggage.  And he drives like a champ.  He is completely un-flustered by the chaos swarming around us at any given moment.  From Qi Tong Lin I have learned one of the key lessons of Chinese survival: never give ground.  The dude barely acknowledges that our van has a reverse gear. Once he noses in to traffic, he will not consider backing up.  Everyone else eventually gives, but never Qi Tong Lin.  We sometimes inch our way through crazy damn u-turns in the middle of busy avenues - a very special Chinese maneuver.  But we never, ever, ever, put it in reverse.  Hell, that's a life lesson!

Today, Qi Tong Lin needed to attend a meeting for drivers of residents of our building.  Probably to remind them not to wash their hair in the lobby bathroom. I had no problem letting him go.

The benefits of learning the local language are huge. Like today on our forced adventure.  We stood on the curb waiting for just the right cab to appear.  A few illegal cabs came by ("black taxis").  Ewa, the pickiest friend I have, waved them away.  A small truck honked and Ewa scoffed, "If they honk, yeeesh!"  Finally a legal taxi (with an actual working meter!) pulled up and the three of us piled in.  

"Where to?" he asked in Chinese.  

"Fu shun jie," we all mispronounced.  

"Huh?"

"Han guo de jie," we said. (The Korean street.)

He seemed to get this and drove on quietly for a few minutes during which Ewa, who was in the front seat, took our money and asked us if it was okay to tip him.  Tipping is not common in China, but Ewa did not want to wait for change.

After a few moments, he asked if we were Canadian: "Ni shi jia na da ren ma?"

"Bu shi.  Shi mei guo ren" says Julie. (No. We're American.)

"Mei guo ren bi jia na da ren hen piao liang! Bu pang de." (Americans are more beautiful than Canadians.  Not fat!)

"Jia na da hen leng," says Julie.  (Canada is very cold.) Those poor, fat Canadians!

"Ni hen hao de si ji!" I add.  (You're a very good driver!)

"Give the man a tip," I tell Ewa as we step out of the cab.