When Jullion, Ryan, and I elbow past the crowd flooding into the silk market, when we dodge the last of the merchants selling jewellery and “I heart BJ” t-shirts, when we finally push past the silk market’s double doors into the Beijing afternoon, we stop short beneath the ledge overhanging the entrance, and look up at the sky.
It’s raining.
“Holy shit,” Ryan murmurs.
Beyond the ledge, a thick curtain of rain roars down on the city. The water beats a static whine on cars, trees, and asphalt. It batters the squat neighbourhood walls, the heaps of trash, the cars parked in and on and across the street in haphazard Beijing fashion. It explodes on the pavement like tiny atom bombs, raising a fine mist that snakes above our ankles.
A warm, wet gust blows our way. The rush of rain bends to reach us beneath the ledge. Stray raindrops pelt my chest, and sink into my thin shirt.
An hour ago, it was a normal day in Beijing: humid, bustling, and smelling of hot car fumes. It wasn’t a normal day for me: it’s my second day here, and I’m still getting used to the overwhelming presence of this city that swallows people and belches smog. I spent all of yesterday holed up in my new apartment, with the cupboard handles that tear off when I try to open them, the fridge that keeps drinks at a steady room temperature, and the toilet that spontaneously bubbles up the smell of dry sewage.
To avoid dealing with my apartment, I went with Jullion and Ryan to haggle at the Silk Market—essentially a four-storey flea market. The silk market is the most popular shopping destination for tourists in Beijing: a place where the stall owners sell anything from counterfeit antiques to counterfeit iPads. When the owners aren’t shouting at customers to buy things, they take naps in the stairwells, squatting with their knees to their chests and their heads tucked under their arms like birds.
We entered the silk market at one o’clock. Not a cloud in the sky. It’s three now, and the city has gone dark under black clouds.
My toes feel cold. I look down. A thin skin of water glides over the pavement, climbing over my rubber soles and into the fabric lining of my trainers.
“What do you think?” Jullion asks. “Subway?”
Jullion has been my hero in China. Calm, collected, and six years older than me, he’s the funniest, friendliest, coolest guy I’ve ever met. He spent our trip to the Silk Market laughing off the vendors trying to sell him t-shirts with portraits of Obama on them, shouting, “Ta ye shi hei ren!”
“I don’t know…” Ryan looks over to where I think the subway is—it’s hard to tell beneath the rain. “Can we make it back without Olivia?”
Ryan is a sullen Asian guy from Toronto. He doesn’t speak much Chinese, and I’m pretty sure he voted for Stephen Harper in the last election. It’s hard to get a word out of him—and I think he’s been hit even worse than me by homesickness.
“Cab!” I shout. “There’s a cab!”
A green and yellow cab pulls in to the curb. It stops, and three Indian girls come out, hands on their heads, shrieking as they run towards the Silk Market entrance.
We run for the free cab. The rain hits me like a wave. Warm, gritty water pelts my face and streams down my neck. Cold slivers creep down my shoulders. My shirt flattens and clings to my chest. The stuffed panda I bought for Carine is in my satchel. I hunch over to keep it dry.
The passenger door to the cab hangs open. The driver smirks as we barrel into the car.
“Ni hao,” I say to the driver as I plunk into the front seat. The car smells of cigarette smoke and perfume.
“Hi,” Jullion says as he slips into the back seat. Ryan follows Jullion in and shuts the door without a word.
“Where are you guys going?” the driver asks in Chinese.
I freeze.
I haven’t figured out how to speak to locals yet. It’s a strange paralysis that I discovered when I first tried to buy some granola bars at the shop beneath my apartment: I can understand Chinese when it’s spoken to me, but when I try to speak here, my tongue locks. The words that danced out of my mouth at home get caught in my windpipe, letting out only a few basic things—good, yes, hello, thank you. How do I say where I live? I don’t even know where we are.
I look over to Jullion. He reaches forward to touch the driver’s shoulder. He says, in clear Mandarin, “Can you take us to the Wudaokou subway station?”
The driver nods.
I breathe. Of course. Any cab driver knows how to get to a subway station, and Wudaokou station is a five-minute walk from where we live.
The driver turns the key. The engine knocks to life. The fare gauge starts up at 10 RMB in neat red numbers.
I consider strapping in, but don’t. It’s rude here—like you’re insulting the driver’s skill. The driver hits the gas. He jerks the wheel left. We spin in a fast, tight U-turn, and enter the opposing lane. Smack! The force sends my head against the window.
I decide to strap in after all. The Silk Market disappears behind us.
A bolt of lightning flashes in the distance. I’ve never seen lightning like it before. In Canada, lightning is a skinny crack of light in the distance. Here, it’s a column of blazing, holy fire. The sky cracks apart, and thunder shakes the ground. I feel the sound in my teeth.
It’s all the crap in the air, I think. The dust and dirt are probably acting as conductors.
The driver pumps the gas pedal. He punches down the horn, and keeps it there. The tires squeal over the wet pavement. The horn wails.
We’re entering traffic.
Beijing traffic is a microcosm of China. It’s fast. It’s noisy. It’s chock-full of people pushing forward, shoving, and honking everyone else back. Everyone is on the road, from government Audis to middle-class scooters to—once—a horse-drawn wagon filled with watermelons. And, like China, it works best when you don’t think about how it works.
Chinese drivers don’t signal; they honk. They don’t give or receive right-of-way; they just go. They don’t check their blind spots—they veer into a new lane, pushing other drivers back in a game of chicken. It’s dangerous. Beijing has ten times the traffic accidents per capita than North America. Navigating the capital’s streets requires finesse, nerves, and a strong shouting voice; the common word for cab drivers is shifu, “master”—a title usually reserved for kung fu teachers.
Our driver honks his horn. The cab spills into a crowded lane. We’re ready to hit a blue Nissan that stands its ground, until, at the last excruciating second, it pulls out and makes way for us.
The closest street outside the silk market is narrow and crowded. The cab lurches into every free space, then stops just short of a traffic accident. My head bobs back and forth.
Jullion’s phone rings. “Hello?”
The driver swerves around a slow-moving lane and charges into a free one. My foot pumps a brake pedal that isn’t there.
“It was Stacey,” Jullion says. “She says the subway tunnels are flooded. They’re coming back up to look for cabs.”
“We’re too far to help them?” Ryan asks.
“Definitely,” he says.
Our driver careens into an ascending lane. He darts between a truck and an electric scooter and charges at a line of unmoving traffic. He hits the brakes. Water splashes up against us and we jerk to a stop, just avoiding a collision with a silver Toyota.
The line doesn’t move. Another car comes up behind us, honking.
The cab is still. The rain is getting worse. It beats the roof of the car like hail.
I sneak a glance at the cab driver. His eyes stay on the road.
We jerk onto a ramp, and onto an ascending road. The gearbox kicks beneath us and the engine revs. We’re gaining ground and altitude fast. I can see the Beijing skyline from here. From here, I can see the city rests inside a bowl. The clouds are a solid black mass above us, spitting streaks of lightning.
The rain comes in gusts against the windshield. The wipers beat back and forth, showing brief glimpses of the city’s skyline. Beijing’s buildings are low to th
e ground, and stained grey with dust. Sharp angles and clean shapes dominate. I think I see the CCTV headquarters—also called the Big Underpants Building because it looks a bit like a pair of boxers—lit up from behind by a massive bolt of lightning.
“Where are you from?” the driver asks.
Jullion leans forward, one elbow on each front seat.
“These two”—Jullion points to me and Ryan—“are Canadian.”
“Huh,” the driver says. “And you?”
“I’m American,” Jullion says. He pats the driver on the shoulder. “Hey, what about you?”
“Eh? I’m Chinese,” the driver says.
“No, no, you must be an American too!” Jullion says.
The driver laughs so I can see the back of his mouth. His teeth are stained from tobacco. “That’s right. I’m from California!”
A column of lightning strikes less than a kilometre away. Immediately, a crack and roar split the air. My ears ring.
“Cao,” the driver mutters. His shoulders stiffen, and he looks sideways at me, like he’s embarrassed. Cao is a swear, the equivalent of “fuck” in English. I heard that Chinese people don’t like to swear around foreigners.
Another bolt arcs down.
“Niubi ah,” I say. Another Chinese obscenity that literally means “cow vagina”, but can also mean “fucking awesome”.
The driver’s shoulders go down. He smiles, just a bit.
The cab fare is at 20 RMB.
“Hey, what’s that?” Ryan points to the right, near a lane that’s closed for construction. “Is that—?”
We all turn to look. There’s a small black shape hugging the rightmost part of the rightmost lane. It’s a man in a wheelchair. He’s pushing himself up the road. He’s drenched. Needles of rain rush at him. Waves splash up from the passing cars and into his face. He ignores it, and keeps on going.
“Wow,” the driver breathes. I shake my head slowly.
The driver punches the gas. We soar higher. The man in the wheelchair vanishes behind us.
We stay on this road for a while. The driver’s put the radio on to a crosstalk show. Men with thick Beijing accents tell jokes to each other over pre-recorded laughter. Occasionally, he switches to a news channel, where a robotic female host reads out broadcasts I can’t understand—except for phrases like “subways flooded” and “flights cancelled”. The wipers beat a steady rhythm against the windshield.
When the fare gauge reaches 45, the driver looks to the right. The lane is blocked by a silver SUV. He honks and moves into the lane. He doesn’t bother signalling.
The SUV honks back. The driver presses closer. We’re less than a foot away from ramming into the car.
The SUV backs down; we’re in the lane. The lane is a ramp down. We’re going back into the city.
We clear an overpass and enter a major road. There’s a line of people in drab raincoats mounted on the traffic islands. They don’t move from their spots. They’re just waiting for the rain to end. The driver shakes his head at them.
The cab turns left. A wall of cars greets us. We’ve found a jam. A black Audi is blocking our lane into an intersection. Every black Audi in the city is a government car. This one’s windows are open. There’s no one inside.
Our driver loops around the Audi, dives into opposing traffic, and blares his horn as we charge into the flooded intersection. A wave splashes up as we turn back into traffic.
The driver swears again. He plays with the gears, and we explode out of the water. We splash some people on electric scooters driving through the murky pool of water. The water ripples past their knees.
“Hey, you guys smoke?” the driver asks. He pulls out a pack.
Jullion makes a face and shakes his head.
“Ah, that’s right.” The driver puts the pack away. “Americans don’t smoke, right?”
“It’s not good for you,” Jullion says.
We’re approaching an intersection. Nothing is moving, but somehow our cab edges between the stationary cars and barrels into the clearing. The intersection is built lower than the rest of the street. It’s flooded with a foot of water. The driver charges through it. Water splashes up to the windows as we roll through. Water swallows our wheels, but the cab keeps going.
It’s a while before we see a spot I know: a set of white apartment buildings with a green sign and gold characters. This is Chengfu Road. We’re back in Wudaokou.
The driver takes us down Chengfu, and the buildings become even more familiar. There’s the congee place I wanted to try. And there’s the street that leads to the sketch-as-hell expat bar, Helen’s. And there, on the horizon, with its sprawling staircase and big, black windows, topped by its wave-shaped subway tube, is—
“Wudaokou Station,” the driver says.
Something tight in my chest finally relaxes. Wudaokou is safe. I know how to get around here. The university where we study is just around the corner, the grocery store less than a block away from that. There’s the Hello Kitty store, the massage parlour, and the tattoo van that somehow manages to stay in business.
The driver pulls in front of the station. There’s very little traffic now, and he hardly has to honk at all.
“All right, kids, I’m off,” Jullion says. He adjusts his baseball cap with the red Communist star and pats each of us on the shoulder.
“Are you going to be okay?” Ryan asks.
Jullion gives a thumbs-up. “My homestay is two minutes away. I’ll be good.”
The fare’s reached 67 RMB. Jullion passes me his share and runs out into the rain. His clothes instantly grow sopping wet, clinging to his chest.
Now, Ryan and I just need to get home. We both live in at the Fu Run apartment complex.
“Where to now?” the driver asks. He turns back to Ryan, probably assuming his Chinese is better than mine. “Am I dropping you off both at the same place?”
Ryan doesn’t meet the driver’s eye.
“I don’t know what he’s saying,” Ryan says to me, in English.
The driver looks at me. My chest tightens.
“Uh…”
I search my memory back to when I was driving with Peng and his wife in Canada. Peng, the 40-year-old music teacher from Shanghai who I met at my kung fu school. They invited me over to help me practise my Chinese. Once I was driving with him, and he said…
Yizhi qu. Straight ahead.
Zou guai. Left turn.
Okay. I take a deep breath. I got this.
“You need to go straight ahead, and make a left turn at the next intersection,” I say. My Mandarin is perfect, just like back home.
The driver nods. He switches gears, and I feel the engine kick beneath our feet.
I direct the driver past the BLCU campus and right off of Xueyuan Street. We stop right in front of the apartments where Ryan and I live. The drive took 47 minutes, and came to 70 RMB.
Ryan gets out and waits in the rain while I pay the driver. I want to leave him a tip, but I heard it’s rude to do that here. My Mandarin is freezing up again, so I say some incoherent thanks. He drives off.
The halls of my apartment are empty when we come in. The lights in the front desk are off. I edge through the narrow lobby hallway with its stained white plaster walls and scuffed green tiles. I take the elevator up to the eleventh floor, to my room.
My apartment is a bachelor’s with enough room for a bed, a TV, and a sofa. When I lock the door behind me, I throw off my wet shirt, put Carine’s stuffed panda on my desk, plug in my netbook, and watch Lucky Star on my computer.
Outside, the rain pours down.
Harbourfront man
Agnes Wakulewicz