Game Changer

The Shanghai Taxi never gets old. Here are a couple quick funny stories...just in the last two days.

First, I was on my way to dinner yesterday with Tina Mu. I've been working with her this week in Shanghai. We've been making sales calls together and doing some training in the office. She's a really nice lady and has a great sense of humor. So after work we head to dinner. We're in a traditional Shanghai taxi (Rickety doors, blaring Chinese talk, guy driving in the Running Man seat, and a smoke going...). We pull up to a weird intersection that seems to have traffic coming from 5 different directions...really weird. Now, mind you, we've barely escaped two accidents and sure death once. Now we're stopped at a light so I can catch my breath. All of the sudden I hear this weird crashing noise. It doesn't sound like two cars hit....it sounds more like a bike or cart...(A donkey wouldn't be a surprise at this point)

Then I see what happened. A taxi driver hit a guy driving a bike! The bike was still in front of the car, the bike driver was on the other side of the car. The taxi hit him hard enough to flip him over the car.

The taxi driver gets out and starts acting like, "Can you believe this guy? What is he doing?"

I was so intrigued by this event that I wanted to get out of the cab and watch. I asked Tina if we could? (I wanted to see how this type of thing plays out with the local police) Tina could have cared less, she said we didn't have time and needed to get to the restaurant. So I never got to see what happened.

There are so many bikes and scooters in China that it's unreal. They look like schools of fish darting all around. Whenever there is a red light, there will be 20-50 of them packed at the light...just waiting for it to turn green. Once the light turns green, the school moves on. Also, the stuff they can carry on those things is amazing. Monday I saw two of them working in unison to carry a giant piece of drywall. They each had a passenger on the back of the scooter and the passengers held the drywall while the two drivers sped along....GREAT!

The second story happened this morning. I know I've said it before, but just when you think you've seen it all...you meet a GAME CHANGER!!!!

I get the bell hop to flag me down one of Shanghai's finest taxis. The guy pulls up and I hop in the back. I give the guy a business card for our Shanghai office. HE PULLS OUT A MAGNIFYING GLASS TO LOOK AT IT! UNBELIEVABLE! I think about getting out...then I say to myself, "The Panda owes it to the people to take this ride."

So the driver studies the card for two or three minutes, then the bell hop gets involved. They chat/argue back and forth...then the bell hop says, "He good, he take you there." (Not the most comforting words)

The taxi then heads out of the parking lot like we are trying to get away from the Death Star before it blows up....two near misses in lane one! He yells something at a guy on a bike...which is funny in it's own right...there are no rules here!

We head out, I have the IPOD jamming, people watching out the window....then after twenty minutes I start noticing buildings that are on the other side of town. I try to tell him we're going the wrong way....might as well be talking to the window button. Finally I get him to stop driving*

*Note: Be careful how you do this. The blind taxi driver decide to stop in the middle of the road...not the best place.

So I try to explain that we are going the wrong way. He says, "I, OK."

"....Right."

He then pulls out his magnifying glass again....looks at the business card...then gives me the thumbs up sign.

I ask him if he knows Mike Utley....he doesn't get the joke.

So we head out again, this time he keeps the magnifying glass in one hand, the business card in the other, and drives with his knee.

I'm in the back yelling at him to put down the stuff and grab the wheel....finally he does. So we start driving again, still going the wrong way. I pull out my phone and call a guy from the office. I put him on the phone with Confucius.

So we head out again....finally we make it to the office. We had gone from Pushi to Pudong and back. We rode around for at least an hour....grand total....60RMB...or about 9 dollars.

Cabs are ridiculously cheap...on the other hand.....so is your life when you get in one! It's all about trade offs!