When
someone says the phrase “worse case scenario” it always seems like it’s not the
worse case scenario and it’s just an exaggeration. Let me preface this story by saying that my time in Shanghai
has been a series of worse case scenarios or at the very least a string of
insatiable bad luck. Before coming
to China, I always had an inclination that I had bad luck, but after moving to
the other side of the world some how bad luck not only followed me, it increased
its power over the radius that surrounded me. Some may argue that it’s not bad luck here in Shanghai. That it’s just the way the city
swallows you whole and messes with every expectation that you ever had.
For
whatever number of reasons; new country, new germs, not enough rest, too many
late nights, and not enough hand sanitizer in the world, I ended up sick within
the first month of moving to Shanghai which had caused voice to sound similar
to that of a sex phone operator.
That being said, I thought I would be the responsible adult and head home
early from the party my coworkers had thrown. Drinks flowed freely and homemade hummus was in abundance,
but this tired sick girl was going to leave at a reasonable hour so she could
catch the metro home.
It
had just started to sprinkle, but I headed out in the rain and started to make
my way through the apartment grounds.
Now that it was dark, all of the streets and buildings on the apartment
grounds looked the same. Wandering
around for a while I finally found my way out the gates to the main road.
I
knew I had a 10 minute walk in the rain to get to the metro stop so I hunkered
down and walked north down Hong Qiao Road toward the zoo. I met other people on the street all
heading somewhere more interesting then the line 10 metro stop I’m sure.
Stepping
on to the escalator and riding down out of the rain was a relief. I only had enough money on my metro
card for 2 or 3 more rides which I why I walked to the metro in the first place
instead of cabbing it home from the party across town. I swiped my card, walked
through the turnstile, and headed down the stairs to wait for the train. Since it was late there was a place to
sit and wait so I plopped down in my soggy clothes and looked at the TV screen
hanging from the ceiling. I had 10
minutes to wait until the next train.
I took out my iPod to play a few games of solitaire while I waited.
Lights
veered down the track and I heard the familiar sound of the metro
approaching. I stood up and walked
toward the platform. As the metro
came closer it did not slow down its speed. It merely flew by in a wink. I stood there completely dumbfounded. “What the hell?” would have been heard
leaving my lips had there been anyone else there to witness the train fly
by.
I
looked up at the TV screen and it now had an updated time of a 15 min wait
until the next train. I sat back
down grumbling to myself and took my iPod back out to resume my solitaire game
that I would undoubtedly lose again.
My
eyes darted back and forth between my hopeless solitaire game and the TV screen
counting down the minutes until the next train. When the time was almost up, I walked over to the platform
again to wait. The lights came
closer and closer and then… flew by without stopping again. “Seriously?!” This time my irritation was heard by someone. Down at the opposite end of the
platform was a metro worker in his little pink button down shirt and holding
his green flag on a stick. He
looked at me with what can only be described as an “oh, shit” look on his
face.
He
walked the distance of the platform toward me, “last metro. You get taxi,” he said pointing up the
stairs toward the street.
“What? Why didn’t the last two trains stop?” I
said with irritation.
He
looked like a cornered animal with no answer for me, “Don’t know. You take taxi.”
“I
don’t have money for a taxi.
That’s why I was taking the metro.” Now I was really starting to panic. How was I going to get home? I knew there wasn’t enough money on my
metro card to take a taxi with it and I had forgotten my phone at home to call
anyone for a ride. I also knew I
couldn’t walk back to the party because I had gotten lost just trying to find
my way out and would not find the right building again.
The
little man in the pink shirt called on his walkie talkie to someone else. I
listened to him talk to her in Chinese for several minutes and then turn to me,
“You go see ticket office. They
help you,” he said pointing upstairs again.
I
sighed and walked upstairs. The
lady at the ticket office had a great solution, “Metro done. You take taxi?”
Good
Lord. Really? I went on to explain to her that would
require money to pay the taxi driver.
“Use
metro card!” she exclaimed excitedly like she had just came up with a cure for
polio. I handed her my card to see
for herself that there was not enough money on it. Sure enough.
3RMB left. That wouldn’t be
enough for him to even start the meter.
The ticket lady looked distraught.
“I
don’t have enough money,” I explained.
I reached in my purse and pulled out two coins, “This is it.” I was holding two RMB and I knew that
it wasn’t much.
“Oh! You take bus!” she said with
relief. Let me tell you now, I
have heard nothing but negative stories about the buses in Shanghai. Terribly confusing and no way to read
the maps because they are all in Chinese.
“No! I will get lost. I’ve never taken the bus. I’m going to get lost.”
She
was unconvinced and grabbed a piece of paper. She wrote down the bus number that I need to take that would
drop me off at the Hongqiao subway station and that it would be the fifth stop
to get off. She refunded my metro
ticket that had already been deducted from my card so now I had a whole 3 RMB
to my name.
I
walked away from the counter reluctantly with the scrap of paper held tightly
in my fist and a foreboding feeling in my gut. As I rode the escalator back up into the rain I tried to
choke back my frustration and fear, but several tears escaped and joined the
raindrops on my face.
My
feet hit the wet pavement without the notion of what was about to
perspire. I blinked the rain out
of my eyes and walked over to the bus stop the lady from the counter had
indicated. I only needed to wait
for several minutes before the correct bus number stopped in front of me with a
screech of its’ breaks. I stepped
on, dropped my 2 RMB into the pay funnel, and took a seat near the front.
The
first thing I noticed was the cleanliness of the bus. It appeared to be relatively clean both to the eye and the
nose. Several rows of seats faced
forward, while the front had a single row on each side facing inward. This is where I sat looking up at the
scrolling screen of street names.
First in Chinese characters and then in English. None of the names scrolling through
looked familiar, but I assumed they were small cross streets I had not seen
yet.
The
bus reared into the darkness in a direction that was not heading toward my dry
apartment. Trying to give the
benefit of the doubt, I figured that the bus would make a loop. That would only make sense since the
lady at the counter was so sure this was the bus for me.
I
counted the stop and held out a finger on my left hand as to not lose track and
get confused. One. Two. Three.
Four. Finally the fifth
stop came. I saw a large sign over
the road that said Hongqiao, but it didn’t look familiar. Again, I hoped she was right and that I
would only have to find the right cross street to get myself home. I stepped off the bus into the
rain.
I
looked down both sides of the street waiting for some piece of familiarity of a
building or corner. Nothing. I decided to walk down to the next
cross street and see what that was to help me acclimate myself.
On
a side note, when walking any great distances in a large city such as Shanghai,
the footwear of choice is tennis shoes.
Not flip flops. And as long
as we are sidetracked, one other thing you must know about Shanghai is that a
“city block” is not a constant and predictable distance from one corner to
another. One never knows how long
you will have to walk to reach the next cross street.
I
finally reach the next corner and look up at the street signs. Written both in Chinese and English is
no help at this point because neither street name is familiar at all. Now I must come up with a next course
of action. I rummage through my
purse and find my last two RMB. I
would keep walking down the same street to the next bus stop and get on
again. The lady from the counter
must just have been wrong in how many stops it was. I would just watch the scrolling red street names again and
wait for Hongqiao Lu.
At
this point there is another pressing problem that I am having difficulty
ignoring. I have to pee. It’s raining, and I’m already wet so I
seriously consider just going in my pants. No one would be the wiser. I’m just a wet white girl in the rain. I push this option aside and continue
walking down the street all the while looking for a place that might have a
bathroom I could use. I even eye
up some tall bushes. Hell, if the
Chinese can pee in their streets why can’t I pee next to them?
After
about ten minutes of walking I see the golden arches. McDonalds meant, a bathroom I could use. I walked in to the restaurant and
headed straight to the back to find just more seats. I looked toward the front corner. More seats.
Since when did they stop putting bathrooms in McDonalds. I thought my bladder would burst right
there on their greasy floors.
Defeated, I walked back out into the rain.
I
could see the bus stop ahead so I convinced my self that it would only be a few
stops until I would be home. The
bus pulled up and several people got on before me. I followed them up the stairs and dropped my last two RMB
into the funnel of doom. People
are creatures of habit and so I sat in the same seat again.
The
street names scrolled through in red lettering in the front of the bus. We stopped and people got off. I noticed that no one else was getting
on. The was slowly emptying. I pushed down the next worry in my head
and proceeded to look out the window determined to find some familiarity. It didn’t come.
The
streets began to get darker due to less streetlights. If I had ever driven through a ghetto this is what I would
have imagined in my head. At least
it would look like this in the dark and the rain.
We
stopped again and now I saw the bus was empty except for the driver and me. Leaning toward him, I asked, “Hongqiao
Lu?” He looked up and nodded his
head yes. I would have felt more
relieved had I believed he understood what I was asking him.
The
bus driver continued driving for another half a block before turning
right. My stomach dropped as I
realized what was happening. He
had just pulled into the bus terminal.
The buses were done running for the night. My mind raced as he backed up the bus next to another,
parked it perfectly, and turned the key off. The rain had now turned into a full-blown thunderstorm.
Thunder crashed. Lightening lit up
the dark lot momentarily. Rain
beat down on the roof of the bus as if to taunt me saying, “Now what?”
My
frantic thoughts are interrupted by the sound of Chinese. I realize the driver is talking to
me. He’s gesturing toward the
door. I have no Mandarin words to
help with the situation that I know found myself in. I speak to him in English hoping my face and hands will
express my misfortune. He thinks
that I don’t want to go out in the storm and hands me his broken umbrella with
a smile gesturing toward the door again.
“I
don’t know where I am,” I say desperately.
“Oh!”
and he holds out his phone for me to call someone for a ride. I don’t know even know my own number
yet, much less any one else’s. I
shake my hands in front of me telling him no.
“Ah! Taxi!” He realizes now what I’m telling him.
Close
to tears now, “I don’t have any money for a taxi.”
What
happens next is the most unpredictable thing to happen in Shanghai. The blue-collar man in Shanghai makes
enough money to put food on the table and not much else. It is not a glamorous well-paid job to
drive bus, but he opens his wallet and hands me 100 RMB, “Money!” He says smiling.
I
want to hug the man but I know this will make him uncomfortable. I thank him over and over in Mandarin,
“Xie xie ni! Xie xie ni!”
My
gratitude for this mans kindness could not be expressed in words, but he
probably had just given me an entire days’ pay. This generosity of humanity catches me completely off guard. I was already resolved to walking the
streets until daylight to find a running metro again.
I
stepped off the bus into the thunderstorm holding up the broken umbrella with
both hands and my 100RMB safely tucked in my pocket. The walk through the parking lot was ankle deep water as the
rain came down sideways. After I
was out of eyeshot of the bus I closed the umbrella because it was not helping
matters.
As
I reached the street I could see that there were several dimly lit street lamps
in addition to 4 people crowded around a street vender talking under an
awning. The smoke from the mystery
meat he was grilling disappeared into the storm but the smell still
lingered.
I
decided to not walk any more and just wait for a cab to drive by. Ten minutes pass when a cab finally
drives by with its’ light on. It
stops and I hop in relieved that my journey is coming to an end.
“Hongqiao
Lu FanYu Lu,” I say to the driver.
This is the way to get from point a to point b. You tell the driver the cross streets
that you want to be dropped at. He
looks at me blankly and I say it again, “Hongqiao Lu FanYu Lu.”
“Oh!
Bu shi! Bu shi!” he said irritated with me. He was telling me no.
I swallowed hard and got out of the cab and watched it drive off.
Fifteen
minutes later another cab stopped.
I got in with a different plan in mind. Instead of just saying where I needed to go I also showed
him that I had 100RMB I was willing to pay him. He did not understand what I meant by the 100 RMB I held
out, but he turned on the meter and we drove away from the street that smelled
like charcoaled meat.
I
said a silent prayer in my head as we drove. Please let this be enough money to get me home. He can keep it all as long as it gets
me home.
We
drove for ages before I saw something I recognized. It was the Hongqiao airport. The lady at the counter in the metro had put me on the wrong
bus in the completely wrong direction.
He
turned onto the interstate. I
concentrated on two things: not peeing my pants, and watching the meter go up
crawling to quickly to 100.
When
we turned on my street and pulled up in front of my building the meter read 82
RMB. The average ride in Shanghai
is around 20, so seeing 82 is shockingly greater then one is used to.
I
handed him the 100RMB and told him, “Xie xie ni,” and gestured for him to keep
the change. He was smiling and grateful. As Haley Joel Osment would say, “Pay it
forward.”
The
rain had subsided when I stepped onto the curb in front of my building. I dug my keys out happy to finally be
home headed up the stairs.
So,
when I hear “worse case scenario” being thrown around haphazardly I can say, "Really? Have you ever been lost in the biggest city in the world with no phone or money?" Was it
bad luck or was it just the ying yang of life in Shanghai? Either way, I resolved to do two things
everyday for the rest of my stay in Shanghai. I will always have my phone and 100RMB. Everything else is just circumstances
of the city swallowing you whole and if you’ve got your phone and money, you
can at least climb out unscathed.
This last week was the first
holiday of the season; Thanksgiving.
In the spirit of sharing our American holiday with the other
nationalities represented in our school, one of our art teachers was kind
enough to paint a beautiful tree across a large window in a common area that
the staff and students pass through; a large black trunk and branches covered
with leaves of every color. There
was a basket left in front of the tree with slips of paper that read, “I am
thankful for…” As the week went on
students and staff alike would write what they were thankful for and then tape
it up on the branches of the tree, thus making it our Thankful Tree. You couldn’t pass by the beautiful
window without smiling and feeling happy.
If you were to stop and read the wall you would find everything from
children saying they were thankful for mom and dad, school, fruits and
vegetables, teachers, and the Thankful Tree. Staff wrote things that varied from family at home, their
Shanghai family, cream cheese, stretchy pants, and good friends. I found myself reading through them the
afternoon after we had our Thanksgiving potluck at school and found myself a
bit misty eyed. Not because I was
homesick from reading everyone’s notes about family, but because I felt such
happiness. We all get caught up in
the whirlwind of every day life and forget to take stalk in what really
matters. We all had so many things
to be thankful for. 
