Taxicab Chinese
The story of how I became fluent in Chinese sitting in the passenger seat
I rustled into the back seat of the taxi as the door clicked shut behind me. It was dark and well past midnight. My driver was still outside chucking luggage in the boot. Glancing through the window, I saw the cigarette in his mouth flare orange as he took a heavy drag. A thick cloud of smoke evaporated into the summer air accompanied by an acrid smell — an odour that over the next seven months I would grow all too familiar with. These urban taxi drivers and their self-acclaimed tolerance to carcinogens could merit either scientific study or cause for concern.
I’d likely rehearsed the first sentence I was going to say a hundred times during the 4000-mile flight over the Pacific Ocean, but my mouth still felt like it was full of chalk. This moment had been two years in the making. A reentry into a foreign culture. A journey I would be making alone.
My driver heaved into the front seat and lurched the gears of the taxi into action. After a brief silence which felt like an eternity, I somehow forced my mouth to open:
Siji, Zuijin Shanghai de tianqi zenmeyang?
I saw my driver raise a wrinkled eyebrow in the reflection mirror, the cigarette in his mouth flaring bright orange once more:
