Friday, June 22, 2007

I was warned "Red Taxi No Good!"


Some of you may recall from a prior post in April about how what you get in a taxi driver can be a real crap shoot!!! I have had taxi drivers on more than one occasion tell me they know how to get to the place on the card only to get lost. Well, Kurt and I had another unique experience. It was a humid morning in Shanghai when we hailed a cab at Diamond Court. I said: "Ching Song Wo Chu Jin Dahn Da Sha (I am going to Aurora Building) and I show him the card. He nods and Kurt and I get in the car. Kurt comments that it is humid (Chow sur). The taxi driver hears, rolls up the windows and turns on the air. So far so good. The driver plays classical music, Mendelsohn, I believe. Kurt and I look at each other and say "maybe red taxi not so bad". We are moving right along and hit a long stop light about halfway into the trip to the office. Kurt and I are talking and so we don't notice that traffic has left and we are just sitting there!!!! All of sudden, the driver wakes up and there is this personality change. He goes from Mr. Hyde to Dr, Jekyll. It's like the change from Mendelsohn to Motley Crew. I think you get my drift. Just like a nascar driver, warming up his tires with the "weaving" we start weaving in and out of traffic. He speeds up, and Kurt and I just kinda look at each other and wonder what to do as we are being jostled by the movement of the taxi across lanes. The journey continues and the taxi driver tries to make a left turn....in front of a Dong Feng, which is a big big truck. The Dong Feng stops, is too close to us and cannot move because on his right is a Buick that has pinched us off from making the left turn....So what does the taxi driver do? He can't can't make it into the correct lane, so he drives into oncoming traffic and actually drives down the middle between two lanes of oncoming traffic!!!!! Now Kurt and I are becoming very anxious, but not as anxious as the motorcyclists being forced to stop in mid turn and the pedestrians running and scattering in all directions as this mad man approaches!!! We are jostled some more, the driver is laughing and going Mai Won Ti, Mai Won Ti. (No problem, No Problem) and I am saying Mon Mon Li, which means "take it easy" but to no avail......we did make it to work but now we absolutely understand that "Red Taxi is noooooooooooooooo Gooooooooooooooooooood!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This picture is of the next poor sucker to become this guy's victim.....I am sure he was just thrilled with the chance to really scare someone else!!!!

All for now............................

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