Worse Case Scenario

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.