Free For All

When I arrived in Shanghai in 2000, the most common vehicle on the road was the Volkswagen Santana. Santana’s were the taxi cabs of Shanghai. In the course of automotive evolution the Santana was eventually replaced by the Jetta. If Santana sounds more like a rock band then a car, it is because in the United States it was marketed in the mid-eighties as the Audi Fox. Whenever I saw one of these vehicles, which was every time I left the house, “Black Magic Woman” would invariably get stuck in my head. True, not nearly as annoying as “Copacabana” or “Living La Vida Loca” but, as a rock fan it just seemed wrong that a classic was reduced to the status of an ear worm. I did not have long to fret, because after a few minutes of driving, Carlos Santana’s smoldering vocals and searing guitar riffs would be replaced by Ted Nugent. All that was required to unleash the Motor City Madman inside my head was to navigate a traffic intersection in Shanghai and the next thing I knew “...it’s a free for all...’’ would be my new internal sound track.

Typically, my driver, Mr. Chang, was at the helm. It is difficult to pinpoint precisely when it started, but unbeknownst to Mr. Chang, my husband and I referred to him as the Chang Man; reverently, of course. He was our fifth and final driver: our first quit for a better gig, (huh?), our second emigrated to France, (huh, huh?), and the others were fired. The Chang Man was the last man standing. In more than seven years of employment he was late for work only once and missed work only when he was hospitalized. He was so bad that we did not think he was going to make it. But he recovered and was back at work, albeit considerably thinner, several weeks later. He had a jovial manner and a persistent smile. The Chang Man loved to drive, and he especially loved our first car, a Lexus. One of the rare occasions that I witnessed his face register displeasure was when we replaced the aging Lexus with an Audi. Actually, he looked more betrayed than anything.

The Chang Man and I witnessed some hair-raising driving during our time together in Shanghai. Typically I would look horrified and he would laugh. He may have been laughing more at my expression that the catalyst for my expression. Expats bicker about which country in the world has the craziest drivers, usually India and the Philippines get more votes than China, with Saudi Arabia not far behind. But in the end, like Dante’s Inferno, you can write about levels of hell, but at the end of the day, it is still all hell.

The area where we lived in Shanghai was new. In the early 90’s it was farm fields.

By the end of the decade it would have a cluster of skyscrapers, including the one of the tallest buildings in the world, the Jin Mao; vast avenues and boulevards that were not congested; and an enormous park with a man-made lake to rival New York’s Central Park.

At an intersection of one of these wide roads our vehicle came to a stop to wait for the light. Apparently a small van in the far right lane, two lanes over from us, realized a right turn would be a mistake and a left turn would be preferable. The only problem with that decision was that quite a bit of traffic had gathered making it impossible to simply turn left. So the little van exercised the only option remaining, it backed up. The little van was backing up at a steep angle so as to cover the four lanes of traffic between their current position and their desired left turn lane before more traffic gathered at the light. The van’s only impediment was the location of our vehicle in their path. Misjudging his vehicle’s trajectory, the little van driver backed directly into the right, rear of our vehicle. The Chang Man and I watched this unfold, oddly amused. When the Chang Man surveyed the damage he had mercy on the apologetic van driver and deemed the scratch to the bumper minor. The small van driver did not escape without a finger wag from the Chang Man, however.

Mr. Chang employed the finger wag on other misbehaving drivers. Nothing was uttered, no words or insults or any other gestures; just the finger wag. More gentle admonishment than insult gesture, the finger wag was a stern reprimand from a senior driver to an amateur. The last time I saw the finger wag my mother was using it on me. I was not even sure if this was a gesture used in China, as I never saw another Chinese person ever do it. But it was Mr. Chang’s strongest rebuke to another, delinquent, driver.

Does your life flash before your eyes if you are not aware the end is near? Or, do you have to have some indication that you are about to cash out to get the lifetime recap? Since I occupied the backseat of the vehicle, I frequently failed to pay attention to the driving environment. In Shanghai, getting from departure point to destination was often akin to sausage-making and I preferred not to look. Only when the brakes started squealing, my torso tested the seatbelt tension, and I heard the unmistakable sound of the Chang Man sucking air through his teeth, did I get any indication that a traffic foible had been committed. Sucking air through his teeth was as close as the Chang Man got to expressing negative emotion.

These Final Destination moments usually occurred on one of the expressways. The scenario was amazingly consistent; another driver had missed their exit. Rather than going to the trouble of proceeding to the next exis,t they simply apply the brakes, stop, and reverse to their intended exit. The only problem of course, is that there is pesky, oncoming traffic behind them; like us. In order to keep from testing Shanghai’s mass casualty response system our only hope was that our brakes, and those of the many cars behind us, were all in working order. This was a disturbingly common occurrence. Somehow we survived.

Traffic accidents are adjudicated somewhat differently in China than back home. Fault is often determined by the location of the point of impact. This fact was demonstrated to me the evening a scooter collided with our vehicle. I thought for sure the Chang Man was taking the fall for this one. How little I understood Chinese motor vehicle laws. Contrary to perceptions outside of China, most Chinese do not ride bicycles, not in the big cities anyway (big being more than 8 million people). However, in the Pudong District of Shanghai the major roads still had bike lanes. These were populated with all manner of two-wheeled vehicles; bicycles, scooters, and motor cycles. Most other drivers were completely heedless of traffic in the bike lanes when they made right or left turns. The prevailing attitude seemed to be “bikers beware.” Mr. Chang shared that perspective. One evening, while making a right turn we both jerked our heads to the right after hearing and feeling a solid “thud” toward the back of the car. Mr. Chang pulled over and we both got out in time to see a very angry scooter driver pick himself and his scooter up off the ground. Police arrived quickly on the scene and after a cursory glance deemed the scooter driver at fault. The deciding factor? The scooter had impacted our vehicle past the mid-way point of the vehicle. Thus, our car was ahead of his scooter. Therefore, he was a fault. Mr. Chang, exonerated, replaced his concerned expression with his trademark smile and we motored on home. At least in Shanghai, it really is a free for all.