The Weekly Wad: The Communication Olympics

Many travelers know that when venturing to a foreign place and staying in even more foreign accommodation, it is customary for hotels/guesthouses/hostels to keep business cards on their front desks for tourists who do not speak the language. Inscribed in the local tongue, these cards are for the sole purpose of informing cab drivers, police officers and people on the street of not only the whereabouts of where you’re staying but that you’re a hapless tourist with remotely a clue as to your whereabouts at that very moment.

These cards typically say something poetic like, “Please take me to the (your hotel name here) Hotel.” You would present them to one of the aforementioned parties and, in theory, they would guide you to the destination on the card. When in a country using a Roman alphabet, I always feel I at least have a fighting chance with street signs and orientation. In China, however, our chances were nil and those cards become not just necessary but vital.

Geg, Riggs, Jeff, Welled and I could have used just such a card once the airport bus had deposited us somewhere in central Beijing. The twenty-five minute ride from the airport terminal to that unnamed locale was like driving through an architectural police line-up. Stout high-rises, skinny towers and hulking structures in mid-construction lined the enormously wide thoroughfares. As if to make a mockery of western design standards, they freely bulged in all directions and shapes without any aesthetic reason whatsoever.

It seemed like a ‘try anything’ approach to design, especially as China was slowly arousing itself from its dull, Stalinist slumber. Architecturally speaking, former Communist countries have all had to grapple with the lack of design imagination (not to mention the abundance of concrete) that accompanies the laughable notion of a classless society. Typically, a curved building was considered by the powers-that-were too bourgeoisie and individualistic while nothing simultaneously glorified “the people” (and insulted the retina) as a boxy, concrete monstrosity.

We did, however, have a print-out of an email our resident friend, Easle, had sent us, containing the name of the hotel we were staying at and where exactly it was located. Specifically, the hotel was a part of the Super 8 family, which, in the States, is a passable hotel chain when money is an issue and when you have no issues with that. The directions were spelled out partially in English but mostly in Chinese characters. Ideally, we were to hand the print-out over to our cab drivers, they would pause to read it and then nod like taking us there was the easiest thing they were going to do all day.

I guess I was expecting Beijing to feel much more cluttered and dense, but in actuality, it was very wide open and flat. And grey. And cold. The random spot where the bus dropped us off, according to Easle’s e-mailed instructions, was supposedly in the center of the city but it didn’t really feel like the epicenter of anything distinctive.

Flailing limbs are still an international symbol for attracting attention and if a cab comes along in the process, even better. Within roughly ten minutes we had split our group up over the first two cabs that did come by. Geg and Welled were in the backseat of my cab, myself on the passenger side. Following the script, I handed the print-out over to the robustly large driver. He paused and then nodded his understanding, which was good because we couldn’t speak Chinese, nor he English.

Our driver had bad teeth and was either sporting a strong personal stench or he had an order of sweet and sour pork in the glove compartment. We were all quiet for the first few minutes of the drive. I couldn’t stay that way though as I love communicating with cab drivers. They are arguably the unofficial ambassadors of any city and the info I have gleaned off them in the past has sometimes proven to be invaluable. Plus, after a long night of alcohol what better sympathetic ear have you for your drunken rantings? But again, all the familiarities of Romance languages and 10th grade Spanish were of absolutely no use to us.

Turning and looking directly at him, I grunted. Not so much a guttural emission of sound as a helpless attempt at basic communication. He peeled his eyes off the road and looked at me with an easy smile.

“Nihow,” I said making it sound like ‘meow.’

“Nihow.”

Then nothing.

The task set before me was a difficult one and Geg and Welled offered little help. I tried current affairs.

“So, uh, Olympics. Olympics. Yeah? Olympics!”

The driver looked at me confused.

“Olympics!” I yelled again as volume replaced articulation. For some reason I thought trying to draw each of the Olympic rings with my finger would seal the deal.

Luckily, we drove underneath a banner draped across a footbridge with the logo for the upcoming Beijing Olympics and I pointed to it. The driver began to laugh and then repeated a close simulation to the word Olympics. The barrier had its first crack. We all laughed.

Our cabdriver began to shadowbox with his fists and we took it to mean that he was referring to one of the Olympic Games’ events. He lost us when he growled like a dog and then pretended to bite down on something. At a red light he took his hands off the wheel and repeated his air punching along with the growl. I turned to look at an equally clueless Geg and Welled. Was dog boxing a new event?

“My Ison,” he kept saying in between repeated growling and laughter. “My Ison!”

The three of us kept putting forth possible guesses as to the meaning of ‘My Ison’. Perhaps he was referring to a native son who was going to compete in the Games or maybe a triumphant, Chinese phrase, yelled at boxing events.

“Oh, Mike Tyson!” Geg exclaimed from the back seat in the middle of another cabbie growl. We all laughed.

I had almost forgotten about Tyson’s penchant for Evander Holyfield’s sweaty ear during a boxing match over ten years ago. What was more interesting was that out of all the cultural references he could have chosen to connect with us the cab driver chose that one.

We pulled into a driveway in front of a large building that could have been a bland, suburban banquet hall. The other cab in our party was behind us and we pretty much knew as soon as the car stopped that the building in question was not our hotel. There was no trademark ‘8’, nor a lick of yellow anywhere on the sign. Riggs got out of his cab and went inside to inquire. Minutes later he came out with a security guard in a winter coat and Russian hat. God only knows what the exchange between Riggs and the guard must have been like. The guard then had a brief caucus with the two cabbies. As they indecipherably squawked, Riggs leaned against my open car window and kept asking me why our cab smelled like garlic.

Before long, the cabs got back on the road again, joining the heavy bicycle traffic. The cabbie attempted to reignite our thrilling conversation.

“Beijing,” he said as he pointed to himself. He then pointed at me.

“USA. New York.”

He laughed. At the next light he took his left arm, stood it upright and bunched the fingers on his right hand, which he then rammed into his left arm and made an animated explosion sound. He laughed again.

The cabbie was taking charades to a new level and I enjoyed the challenge. He didn’t fail to repeat his exploding theatrics many times and each time I would turn to Geg and Welled with a puzzled look.

“Birodden!” He suddenly exclaimed while pointing at me and laughing. “Birodden!”

“Birodden?”

“Birodden!”

“Birodden . . . Birodden?”

“Birodden!”

Clearly, we were getting nowhere and we were all ready to give up and smile politely until the driver repeatedly rubbed his chin while looking right at me. The trip was young but I was already sporting some facial foliage and it finally hit me.

“Ah, Bin Laden!”

The driver’s hand motions were meant to emulate the downing of the World Trade Center, we finally figured out. If he had one more arm he could have done both towers.

I do remember pausing. I was unsure how to take that. The subject matter itself wasn’t funny and I had never seen anyone in the States reenact the event with such comedic gusto (or spittle). Since 9/11 didn’t really hit home for the Chinese (bad pun) the event, for them, was a far away abstraction, an abstraction already seven years old by that point. It must be similar to Americans laughing about comic portrayals of Hitler during World War II. After all, he was just some mustached madman in far off Germany.

Time had already started to smooth away the rough contours of the tragedy and even I wasn’t that shocked by it anymore. However, I don’t feel the cabdriver was trying to be an asshole. He was merely responding to the words ‘New York’. At least it was a more contemporary reference. After a long five seconds or so, we all laughed.

It wasn’t long after that we actually saw the big ‘8’ coming up on our left. I quickly folded the e-mail print-out and paid the guy the hilarious equivalent of $3 for a forty-five minute cab ride. Not two blocks prior, he had taught us how to pronounce the neighborhood we were in (“dong-sooh”) and Super 8 in the local accent (“Supah Ate-a”). We taught him to say “thank you” — somewhat — and he reached for the cushioned air pillow I was wearing around my neck and put it around his.

We all laughed.

Comments

You are such a great visual writer. I could totally picture your whole cab ride! Bin Ladin...that's funny.
Pls add me to your new post alert email so I don't miss any posts.

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