Monday, April 20, 2009

TAXI


















You put out your hand. Get in the taxi. Tell the driver where you want to go, and he’ll repeat it to you, the same words with slightly different intonation, to show that you’re a stupid foreigner. You put your bag between your legs and stare out of the windscreen. You pull up to the first set of lights. You can tell he’s looking at you. Time for some Chinese.

THE WEATHER IS GETTING COLD you shout. For some reason, you always raise your voice when you try to speak the language. I WILL HAVE TO BUY A SWEATER. Probably not appropriate, but it follows on in the text-book.

You can speak Chinese! The driver exclaims. A LITTLE you scream. Then the driver will ask you whether you’re French, for some reason, and you’ll say, NO I AM ENGLISH, and then you’ll say I VERY LIKE BEIJING, and he’ll repeat it to himself and laugh. And then that will be it till the next red light. He or she is still looking at you. Still with the same eyes that strangers look at you with here. Not staring, just looking, like you’re on the telly or in the zoo or something. Expressionless. Flat face. Looking.

And then something will happen. Something always happens. The drivers phone will go off, and he’ll answer it, put it on loudspeaker, and then bellow into it, six inches from your ear. The conversation seems to revolve around shouting WHAT? at each other until one of them hangs up. Or maybe he’ll start asking you questions. Which is bigger? Russia or China? Do you cook for yourself or eat out? Where do you work? How long does it take to get from Beijing to London? Do you have any pets? Most of these questions you can’t answer unless someone is there to translate for you, but it doesn’t seem to matter. He is smiling. You’re smiling.

The best is when there’s something else in the cab too. When you get to the third or fourth set of lights, and it’s silent again, and you can hear something in the car going zzz-zzzz. Zzz-zzz. And you think: maybe it’s his phone. Yes, it must be some sort of funny phone noise. And it doesn’t stop. So you point to your ear and ask him: what?

And that’s it. His face breaks into an enormous smile. Beaming with pride, he reaches into his jacket, and pulls out a little plastic pot, about three inches long and one across. He hands the pot to you. Inside there is a huge grass-hopper, cricket, call it what you will. It’s fucking massive, and bright green. Its tentacles move all over the inside of the cylinder, fingering the air holes in the top. It’s quiet because it doesn’t know what’s happening. Your eyes meet. It likes you. ZZZ ZZZ. ZZZ ZZZ, it shouts. And then another pipes up, from inside his jacket. He must have a whole family in there, in their own tubes. You laugh. He laughs. IT HAS VERY BIG SPEAK you say to him. He nods. This is fucking brilliant.

You reach your destination. You feel a thousand metres tall. You are living in another country and someone has just shown you his grasshopper. This has been the best taxi ride you have ever had. He pushes the meter back up. ‘Thank you for take Beijing Taxi bye bye’ says the recorded message, in English. BYE BYE, shouts the taxi driver, grinning. Cheers mate, you reply.

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