The Drive from Shanghai to Changzhou
I have always prided myself on either being content in the moment or being wise enough to appreciate a difficult situation knowing that something worse could come along. But, I had thought that the worse thing was the thirteen-hour flight from Minneapolis to Tokyo. It was cramped, claustrophobic and after seeing the fabulous mountain, it seemed it would never end. There wasn’t much good about it except that it was getting me to China. I had read a little and I had seen the breathtaking mountains, but otherwise, it was not a pleasant experience.
But after arriving in Shanghai, came what was probably the most dangerous and definitely the worst part of my journey. We had an approximately two-hour automobile drive from the old Shanghai airport to Changzhou where Hohai University was located. I soon came to the conclusion that I had safely flown to China only to die in a car crash on my way from the airport. Most of the time, I was actually too tired to care. But, every once in a while something would come to my attention that caused me to be quite upset and agitated. I mostly thought of my poor daughter and son sacrificing their mom for a crazy adventure that had hardly begun.
We were on a new toll-road expressway, but the lanes seemed much narrower than the ones in the US. Trucks, but not ones like in the US, rather rickety old ones, loaded so full that they either seemed they would tip over or the boxes or whatever it was that was tied on would start to fall off right in our path. The trucks seemed to be going so slowly and we seemed to be passing every one of them going fast—too fast for safety. We passed everything and were weaving back and forth in the lanes like I had never seen anyone drive except maybe in a movie. The driver would brake behind a vehicle, flash his headlights, blow the horn and then take off passing it. It seemed that he did it without looking carefully for other traffic. Several times the driver actually wove in and out passing trucks in both lanes. He spent so much time blowing the horn at anything and everything. I tried to look at the speedometer and it seemed to point to about 80, but I wasn’t sure if that was MPH or KPH. I couldn’t even think which speed was the faster. I was very anxious and kept making comments to Yang that I had been driving since I was fifteen or that I had been driving for almost 40 years and had never imagined someone driving like this. I often questioned our safety. Yang once yelled at the driver and he yelled back at her as if that only added to the fun that they seemed to be having. She so sweetly assured me that, “ He is the University driver.” I wanted to say, “What does that mean? Does he have a Ph.D. in driving? So, what!!” I kept saying that this was not safe and I was frightened. I actually asked more often—“How much longer?” than I had thought on my 13-hour flight.
I was very tired and very frightened, but then I tried to be quiet for fear that I might get hysterical because I was also very cold. It was freezing cold because a back window in the van was wide-open and there either was no heater or it didn’t work. I began to think longingly about the wonderful plane flight where at least I was warm.
Then, at last, I saw a huge dragon like on a billboard only bigger, freestanding and three-dimensional. I later used that dragon for the year to let me know that I was close to Hohai University. We came to a quick turn and stop and a gate opened for us. In very dim lighting we drove across the empty campus because it was after midnight, but it seemed that we were driving on the sidewalk. At least we were going slowly and it was too late for students to be walking around.
I later found out much about driving in China. My ride from the airport was pretty typical of driving in China and it probably would have been more dangerous had the driver followed American driving laws. There seem to be few driving laws in China, not about speed, lane changing or using signals other than constantly blowing the horn. I later recorded with a movie camera a drive that I took each week from the University to the Number 1 High School of Jingsu Province where I taught one day each week. I remember dreading the drive and giving a huge sigh of relief each time I survived it. I also found out that since so few cars ever entered the campus, when they occasionally did, the usual sidewalk was their road.
What a day!!? What a night!!? What next???
When we finally drove the four blocks and climbed a long stairway and then walked the very long hallway to my apartment and entered, it was freezing cold inside. There was absolutely no heat. Yang kept fooling with and mumbling about the “air-conditioning.” I kept telling her that I don’t need “air-conditioning,” I need HEAT. There was much I had to learn about China. She finally left and I was devastated. I wanted to cry and go back home, but the only solution I could think of was to dive under the blanket with all my clothes on and pray that I would fall asleep fast, which I did.