Same Old, Same Old?

---

Last night was another teeth-rattling ride home from the office. The outer edge of Typhoon Muifa, which has been pounding the Philippines and China's eastern coastline, roared into Beijing yesterday afternoon with a vengeance. Similar to our last adventure with water in China's capital city, the skies over Fengtai district ominously darkened and the winds picked up just around quitting time. It was starting to sprinkle as I exited the office, our shuttle driver vigorously flapping his arms in my direction to encourage me to pick up the pace.

Sidebar: Our driver is a curious fellow. Obviously born and raised in the countryside, his accent can be difficult for me to understand, which is unfortunate because he loves to impart useful advice to me on the ride home, such as suggesting that I should steal wifi from my neighbors instead of subscribing to a service myself. I often resort to smiling and nodding when I can't understand his mumbled diction, but sometimes that only serves to encourage him as he believes I am in complete agreement with whatever the heck he is talking about. I've likely acquiesced to something illegal by now.

Anyway. My colleagues and I clambered into the van, chattering excitedly. It's interesting to me how excited Chinese people get when a storm is coming. Some take every possible precaution to ensure that not a single centimeter of skin is sullied by Beijing's admittedly dirty rainwater, wearing colorfully patterned galoshes and grasping umbrellas so huge they force the handler to walk at an uncomfortable angle to avoid gauging out the eyes of passersby. Others, usually electric scooter riders, don hooded ponchos with extra long fronts that are designed to fit over the head of the scooter for added protection. These individuals, usually young men, find great joy as they gleefully roar through the flooded streets, paying little heed to the unfortunate pedestrian who unwittingly walks too close to the edge of the sidewalk.

I tend to belong to the former group. Even as a little girl, I took great care to avoid the tiniest drop of water or mud. One piece of Wilson family lore that is told with special fondness is of a hike the extended family took in northern Wisconsin during our annual summer pilgramage to Door County. It had just rained and the rutted hiking trail was full of puddles. I was lagging behind the group, fastidiously avoiding the mud, when the inevitable happened. The family heard a wail of dismay and knew what had happened before anyone turned around. I don't actually remember that incident; it must have been so horrifically scarring to my young self that I blocked it out.

Back to the present. It was sprinkling as our shuttle pulled away from the office park. My colleagues were competing with one another to see who had the longest commute home and would inevitably get caught in the coming downpour. Though I refrained from participating, I knew that I would be the sad recipient of the wet prize. About two minutes after leaving the office, it began raining in earnest and we got stuck in traffic. I was staring idly out the window when I noticed a young Chinese guy walking next to the road. He was wearing a black t-shirt with hot pink lettering that screamed 'MAKE YOUR OWN'. I waited for him to walk past the shuttle so I could see what the back of the shirt said. He passed. There was nothing written there. I felt robbed. I wanted to yell after him, "Make my own what? Sandwich? Sweater? Rubber band ball? Just tell me!!"

That's one of the many perplexing things about life in Beijing- the Chinglish clothing. "Chinglish" is a term used for written or oral language that's a mixture of Chinese and English and usually doesn't make total sense. The Make Your Own t-shirt is a prime example. Another example would be a shirt I saw this morning. A 60-something Chinese man was prancing down the sidewalk in my neighborhood, wearing a sheer, loose white t-shirt emblazoned with bold black ink proclaiming him a "Lady Killer". Or the little girl I saw shopping with her mother, wearing an adorable pink ruffled top that screamed "B****" across the back. I swear, I am not making this up.

So there I was, sitting in the shuttle, feeling confused and cheated, watching the young guy amble away and leave us in his dust, when it began to rain in earnest. Our shuttle is so delightfully rustic, the front passenger window couldn't be closed all of the way lest the windshield fog up to the extent that the driver couldn't see. The wind was whipping the trees back and forth and the rain coming down in sideways sheets. My one consolation was the the driver was concentrating too hard to instruct me how to steal a bicycle without being caught (though since I've now had not one, but two, bicycles stolen, this would have been useful knowledge).

The traffic inched forward, our driver impatiently whacking the horn at random intervals. I'm not sure what he expected to happen or where he expected the line of cars stretched out in front of us to go, but he was becoming increasingly agitated. Finally, it became clear he had reached the point of no return; he yanked the steering wheel to the right and began speeding along the shoulder. The van was dead silent, save for the sound of the water splashing against the side of the shuttle as the tires spun along the slick pavement. Then, there was a collective gasp as we all saw what lay ahead. The shoulder was ending in about 10 meters. A dauntingly high curb loomed out of the pavement, daring anyone to circumvent normal roadway behavior.

We all looked at one another and then at the driver. Setting his jaw, he pressed his foot hard to the gas. The van lurched toward the curb. Ten meters...seven meters...three meters...and then, BUMP! The van rocked crazily as the front tires flew over the curb. We landed with a crash on the wide sidewalk as the back tires made contact, only breaking speed momentarily. Honking wildly, the driver sped toward the end of the sidewalk in front of us. Other drivers on the road slammed on their brakes with expressions of bewilderment clearly written on their faces. With a mighty WHOMP we careened into the roadway on the other side of the sidwalk, forcefully parting the traffic like Moses parting the Red Sea. Laughing manically, the driver crowed that we'd beaten the traffic.

My nerves totally shot, I looked down at myself to ensure that I was, in fact, still intact. I couldn't believe what had happened in the span of five minutes. First, I was scolded for walking too slowly. Then, I was befuddled by yet another engimatic t-shirt. Next, I was disheartened by the traffic jam we'd encountered. And, finally, I'd been nearly ejected from a moving vehicle on my way home. What was next? With the night we'd been having, it seemed anything was possible.

A mere hour-and-a-half later, I disembarked from the crazymobile at the shuttle's last stop and started the walk home. The rain had tapered off to a chilly drizzle that slowly dripped off the edges of my umbrella as I skirted the puddles, mindful of the ever-present possibility of disaster. I couldn't help but chuckle to myself as I recalled the events of the after-work commute. Life in the Middle Kingdom is never boring, and that evening had been no exception. I wondered what the next day would hold.

Probably something worth writing a blog about.

---

Comments

[Bigbrother]

Chinese actions a
On web surfing to yahoo in today morning, I hit the wild brawl video clip. It looked too terrible. Basketball palyers of two nations exchangeed blows in the court. the goodwill game between America and China is turned to noisy quarrel. according to news Your Vice President, Joe Biden is on visiting Bejing China. after the credit rating of your country downgraded, Chinese government might has much complaint in US government's reactions. In the Soth korean penninsula,from Aug.16th to the end of this month, the joint military training between South korean forces and US foreces is opreating against North Korea. in this term, World championships of IAAF will be held in Dae-gu city,SoKo. It is very inharmonic situation. A week ago, North korean artilleries fired away to South Korea areas(NLL) of the west sea. I felt very nervous. I carefully expect that the situation of te Korean peninsula will be getting worse and worse. NO More War in the Koran peninsula! Everlasting Peace In the world.