I hail from London and in London, everything is expensive, taxi rides being absolutely no exception. I love London cabs, there is something glorious about the spacious back, the fold down, backwards facing seats and the happy chappy in the front who knows London like an old weathered friend. Perhaps it’s the sense of exclusivity – no where else in the world has black cabs quite like the quintessential British ones; when I was younger my mum used to bribe me to ‘be a good girl’ with the promise of a short ride going nowhere in the back of a London cab. Fast forward through the wistful, nostalgia of life up smoke and boom…hello China!

One of the best things about life in China is the ease. For all of the complaining that we do about the difficulties caused by cultural misunderstanding, ridiculous beurocracy and just a hint of the ‘I have no idea what the hell is going on’ moments, life here is pretty damn sweet. The taxis are cheap for a start, not to mention the fact that many bars and restaurants stay open until you decide to leave and you can even get a massage at 2 in the morning! I’m sure many of us have stories to tell of journeys in Shanghai taxis, some funny, others down right bizarre. Here are a few of my favourites…

 1. ABC

One day I was chatting away to the taxi driver in an attempt to improve my Chinese skills and find out a little of the perspective of native Shanghainese, what do they think about life in the big Cit-ay? We were having a nice, albeit limited, conversation when he suddenly broke off to randomly regale me with his rendition of the ABC song…in the classic operatic Chinese style. Amazing!

2. Hail Hitler

This conversation took place in dodgy Chinese…

Taxi man: where are you from? America?

Me: NO! I’m an English (wo)man

Taxi man: Ahhh, I see. Pause. HAIL HITLER! (Complete with hand gesture).

Urm…close, but no cigar!

3. Just a little trim

What better place to cut your finger nails than waiting in traffic while driving poor unsuspecting people around the ever expanding mega-tropolis? Life is just too short and time is limited. I, for one, am particularly fond of sharing someone else’s bodily off-casts, especially when they come flying over and land on my lap!

All together now…AAAAHHHH CHIIINA!!

On traffic: During the university years, my good friend Jazzy fizz got run over by a push bike twice in as many weeks. I don’t believe I have to explain why this is utterly hilarious. Four years later I still feel the familiar rumbles of a gimpish giggle arise within me at the memory of her second frantic phone call, which essentially blamed the crack heads of Hull for her idiotic inability to look before she crosses the road…we’ve all seen the hedgehog advert, we all know the process, we all, by the age of 21, are able to apply said process to our general lives.Since moving to the Orient, a whole new meaning has been applied to ‘stop, look and listen’ and I can say with urgent certainty that lovely Yaz should NEVER venture to the East. On the way from the airport I was in a minor car accident when a man decided that he didn’t quite fancy stopping at that inconvenient moment and would instead stop a few seconds later, slightly wedged into the boot (uS translation: trunk) of the car that I was in. I sat there for an hour watching police, random men, my driver, their driver, the driver’s great aunt Mildred and the shopkeeper around the corner come and fight to inspect the damage. Oh, and to inspect me of course.

As my curious sleep deprived face met theirs through the window, I thought, ‘wow, so this is China.’ Strangely, unexpectedly even, it made me feel incredibly happy. Why? You ask me over and over. Why can’t you just rant about China and be done with the positivity parade nonesense? Well…I moved to China to live in…China!!

The traffic in China is mental. You can buy licenses on the black market; red lights, like security checks at the metro stations, appear to be ‘just a suggestion’. It’s not uncommon to see whole families going on a lovely jaunt all on one moped and there’s no telling whether that moped will stay on the road or whether they’ll want to jazz things up a bit by cruising along on the pavement. On my first day of work I decided to take the more Chinese route to the centre.

As I was walking through the small roads lined with make-shift shops and hole in the wall food places, a mix match of chairs and tables lining the pavements, I had to dodge bikes left right and centre. It took me almost twenty minutes to cross the road and at one point I looked up to see about thirty bikes hurtling towards me, all of this down some small back streets. This evening I was on this same road, eating dinner on the pavement. My friend Kat and I were discussing the intrinsic value of edeamame beans when two women drove their bikes full on into each other, their response: a mere death stare, quick brush down and back to convulsing the road, on to survive another day. Kat looked at me, shrugged and said, ‘It’s China.’

Of faking it- The Chinese are well known for their incredible ability to make a counterfeit for just about everything. They even have fake eggs, a concept which is incredibly complexing…surely real eggs are cheaper, easier, more convenient? My favourite example of faking it came when we went on a dragon boat race outing to Shanghai’s sculpture park. As we approached China’s largest man-made lake complete with fake beach, my friend Laura proclaimed, ‘what the hell is that? Are those children NAKED??’ As we got closer we realised that those naked children were in fact naked statues of children…urrrm (???!!!)…these statues of frolicking infants were accompanied by several other, pretty damn life-like statues doing all kinds of fun, beach-related activities. The BEST part was that in the brochure this whole interesting display was explained as being: ‘To simulate an authentic beach experience.’ God I love China!

The torch of ridiculous has taken on a distinctly greasy flavor, as I pass it precariously over to Shexpat Rebecca Wade, who will recount with splendor and a slightly irked tone, her most ridiculous moment of the week:

Few things upset me in this country anymore. When first moving to China I was astounded by the juxtaposition of the overall cleanliness and dirtiness of the place. The city can afford to hire people who spend their days sweeping busy city streets, but can’t educate their citizens on containing their bodily fluids while riding the metro.

I can deal with piles of trash. I can deal with walking on the street and smelling foul and indescribable smells. I can deal with people trying to run me over with their bicycle, pushing me on and off of metro trains at rush hour, and staring at me like I’m some sort of weird monkey.

However, I had issues dealing with the following situation:

About a week ago I was riding the train back into the city after working all day. I normally ride the train back by myself these days so as to have a final cram session before my next Chinese lesson. So here’s the image shot: me – on a bench, headphones on, book open, hair in my face bobbing along to some mindless music.

Out of the corner of my eye I had spotted this greasy bag of noodles. This snack is common on the streets and is a glass noodle which has been stir fried with various peppers, sesame seeds, and lots of oil and spices. The noodles are an odd opaque color, but the oil is a very distinct red. The type of red that makes your skin crawl, because you know, if that color is ever unleashed near your person, your wardrobe will forever hold a greasy mark of your messy eating shame.

This dish can of course be good and was enjoyed often, back in the early years of my Shanghai life. However, now I stare at it and just think to myself, “….how could I eat that stuff.” I have a stomach of steel from years in China sure, but that stuff – well, it’s pushing the limit.

At any rate, this guy was standing in front of me with his bag of noodles and as the train swished in and out of stations he was doing the mandatory metro-shift, shuffling his way around in the car in order to find a seat. I guess somehow a white woman studying Chinese caught his attention and he became quite curious. As he inched closer and closer with each train stop, I kept eyeing the bag but maintained my calm, there was after all no need to attract any more attention than necessary.

Reaching up to take a better look at my book, he grabbed the plastic hand rail above me with the hand that was of course, holding the bag of noodles. Trying not to make eye contact I went to move my jacket off my leg and stared in horror as it happened. The bag started to leak that nasty, red, smelly, vile liquid down onto my pants leg. I looked up slightly in shock, the man didn’t say a word. Instead he put his arm down and walked away.

Seriously?! You just dripped your nasty bag junk onto my leg and walked away, without saying sorry or even a quick goodbye? Are there no decent men in Shanghai?

Oops just doesn't cut it!

In the moment I felt so violated and embarrassed I didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t my mark to bear, but it had been placed upon me. The smell rising up from my pant leg would soon be my company for the next several hours as I made my way through Chinese class.

I did the only thing I could do….I took out my tide pen and scrubbed.

Lesson Learned: When you see a bag of noodles heading your way – best to just close the Chinese book, get up, and walk away.

In conjunction with my ‘A week in Shanghai on 200 kuai’ mission towards self-martyrdom, I shunned the more expensive, Western hospital option in favour of a trip to the Shanghai number one people’s hospital. If this is number one, I am so curious about number 551!

Cue 9am Saturday morning in the Chinese part of the Chinese hospital; insert several hundred infirmed people forming a human conveyor belt of chaotic madness. Scribble into the picture a series of dirty waiting rooms, an ayi half-heartedly sweeping up cigarette butts and Pepsi cans from the floor (absence of antiseptic cleaning fluid duly noted) and one slightly overwhelmed British girl who had never been more of a minority in her life.

Now, what I am about to impart regarding my full Chinese assimilation should be preceded with the following information: it took less than two hours to do what would take two weeks on the NHS and the whole treatment (seeing the doctor twice, scan, blood test and four different  types of medication) cost 300RMB, which equates to exactly £30 and when you take off the 90% that my insurance pays – 30RMB for a whole lot of body probing. Additionally, the hospital use a very effective method of keeping track of who of the hundreds of faces owes what-each person is issued an electronic card, which is swiped by every doctor and specialist you see. This not only contains the amount that is owed but also all details regarding your condition. Compared to the 1930s throwback system in place in Prague, this was really quite pleasing.

Our first mission was to see a doctor and so we joined a queue of people for one of the numbered doors on the fourth floor. I was absolutely the only white person in the whole building and so the subject of much curiosity. However, hospitals have a way of humbling and the stares were not quite of the same intensity as those on the metro.

Because of the Chinese impartiality to the custom of queuing, a level of polite aggression was necessary. We had to be ready to move seats, edging closer towards the doctor’s office, the minute the person next to us moved up the line. If we were not fast enough, somebody else certainly was. This had the effect of everyone kind of hovering over the chairs with an expression of slight paranoia.

Once I finally got to the see the doctor, I was one of five in the room with four other doctors, the doctor spoke absolutely no English, kept coughing into her unprotected hand and examined me on a table in the middle of the room in full view of all of the other patients. AAAAHHHH CHIIINA!!!

Next it was down to floor one and a swift walk through a room full of patients of all ages. There were old people in wheelchairs holding a catheter bag in one hand and a bag of saline solution in the other. Several people lay bleeding on wheelie beds or gazing forlornly out from behind half drawn curtains. Of course there was also the token smoker, casually puffing away as if he was waiting for a pint at the bar. ‘I’m in a germ vortex. If this doesn’t kill me, my mum will when she reads my blog,’ I thought.

I was hurried to a small booth type thing in the middle of the room; the minute I sat down the woman behind the desk grabbed my arm, tied an elastic band around my upper arm, took a needle out of a sterile packet and with very little warning, shoved the needle into my unsuspecting vein. Once she had finished she threw the bloody needle and tube into a lidless, plastic box to my immediate left where it joined many others of its kind.

My experience of a Chinese hospital doesn’t beat that of a Sri Lankan private hospital where the operating theatre consisted of labeled cardboard boxes: circumcision, endoscopy etc. and where there was blood all over the floor from some poor fellow who’d come before. Or the state hospital where the entire Nuwara Eliya police department had their injections done with recycled needles in a waiting room whose walls sported centimeter thick grime. However, it was an incredibly interesting experience.

In a country where people are numbered and the collective, not the individual, is the main consideration, it can be seen that efficiency is the most vital element to medication. The hospitals may not be clean but they are thorough and the Chinese have a pretty sturdy constitution, judging from what they’re willing to put in their mouths. When you are but one in 1.4 billion, it becomes easier to understand why politely waiting in line, or having privacy to see the doctor, or a forewarning before your vital liquids are extracted from your body, don’t seem to be factors of much importance. Oh China, you crazy, quirky, potential death trap. I do so love you.