ISpyShanghai

At Ikea last night, buying a mattress so that Emma’s ex-boyfriend can come and stay at our place (how did this happen again?).

We get a taxi home and the guy starts up asking where we’re from.

Me [in Chinese]: England
Taxi [in Chinese]: Ah, England is a (something or other)
Me [in Chinese]: England is what?
Taxi [in Chinese]: A (something or other)!- China is also a (something or other) Germany is a (something or other else).
Me: ?
Emma [in English]: I think he’s saying that England and China have a free trade agreement, but Germany is a protectionist state.

Now, see, this is why I prefer to sit in the back of taxis.

This guy was a student of Philosophy so we spent the rest of the journey playing a bizarre game of charades, with a twist. Instead of acting out the name of a film, he would sound out the Chinese name of a famous western thinker and we would try to guess who it was:

Taxi: A To Ma, Ah Kwi Na
Emma: Errr err, Aristotle?
Me: No we’ve had him. Umm, Thomas A Becket?
Emma: Thomas Aquinas! Thomas Aquinas!

What I learned from the journey was thus:

• Francis Bacon was the original author of Shakespeare’s plays
• Napoleon is “the same” as Descartes (somehow) 
• You can fit an Ikea double mattress in the back of a Volkswagen Santana (but one of you has to sit in the front)

I got an email yesterday asking if there was any way you could avoid being cheated by taxi drivers in Shanghai.

Oops.

It seems that after I called them out as crooks, mentioned how they threw Emma’s bag on the highway and ripped me off on a journey from the airport, I’m painting them in a bit of a bad light. 

Now the taxi drivers in old Shanghai are no angels:

• overflowing ashtrays right next to the “No smoking” sign, 
• driving like the car is on fire and they’re trying to shake off the flames
• a complete inability to tune a radio so that it’s less than 50% static

On the whole though I think drivers are good people working 12 hour shifts in bad traffic with little complaint.

And cool sunglasses.

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