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Award-winning columnist Tom Archdeacon — an old-school storyteller in a brand-new venue — writes about sports, the city, southwest Ohio and anything else that catches his fancy… or yours.Home > Blogs > Through the Arch > Archives > 2008 > August > 18 > Entry
BlOG: “Ohhhh So Sexy”
BEIJING — I walked up to the only driver at the cab stand outside my media village early the other morning — a guy who looked like Peter Lorre and smelled like lots of English Leather — and handed him a small piece of paper filled with Chinese characters that bore my destination across town.
A Chinese lady had written them down for me since almost no cab drivers speak English and the only Mandarin I know would serve me best in a tavern, not a taxi cab.
So anyway, the cabbie looks at my card, smiles warmly and nods. He was so pleased to have me in his cab, he insisted — and I mean insisted — I sit up front, not in the back.
I’m thinking “Okay, this is my lucky day. I’ve finally got a cabbie who knows just where he’s headed”.
And boy this guy did — a thought that now makes me squirm.
To appreciate my initial joy, understand that usually when you hand a driver your directions card, he stares at it quizzically, frowns, shakes his head and begins mumbling in Chinese. He looks at you, you shrug, he shrugs, you shrug and he motions for you to get in the cab.
Next thing you know you’re in a swell of non-stop traffic of all stripes: Cars, trucks, busses, all kinds of motor bikes— some three wheelers I’ve seen have what look like mini, wooden outhouses on the back — bicycles carrying entire families and others with what appear to be a dump truck loads of junk lashed to them Beverly Hillbillies style.
And it’s after driving several minutes through this maze that your driver often holds up your card, mumbles more Chinese and you realize he doesn’t have a clue where we’re going. Sometimes he’ll pull over and show someone along the street the card and they both debate.
One guy driving me finally called his wife on her cell phone, who called her friend who spoke English, who then called his cell phone and asked to speak to me. I told her where I was going in English, she told him and everybody was happy.
But the other day all that seemed so unnecessary. Like I said, I’d found a guy who knew exactly where he was headed.
So just as we’re about to pull away from the cab stand , he looks over at me and with his right hand, gently touches the end of my white fu manchu moustache and then my white sideburn and offers a guttural, “Ohhhh.”
Seemed pretty weird to me, but I figured this was probably one of the cultural quirks over here. Many Chinese people seem pretty curious of people who look a lot different than they do.
So we drive a couple of lights and he points to his smooth forearm, then reaches across and gently runs the hair on my arm. And then he takes my arm, raises it to his cheek, so the hairs just touch his skin and again says, “Ohhhh.”
I’m still thinking — or maybe it was hoping by now — that this was still some kind of cultural disconnect. I said to myself, ‘Hey, Chinese people are pretty fascinated by strangers.’ I’d had at least a dozen of them ask to pose for photos with me. Lots more just stared. So I figured this was just some of that taken to the extreme.
But a light further, Mr. Lorre and Leather reaches over again and touching the moustache, this time more guttural than before, goes “Ohhhh so sexy.”
I nod toward the road but he tries some kind of light karate chopping deal on my knee. As I’m reaching over to tell him I’m about to Jackie Chan his chops, he shoots his hand up my leg and, yep, right into the old cajones.
By then I said to hell with culture and gave him a little cuff on the side of the head to get him refocused on the road. I would have hopped out, but he’d put my Chinese instructions in his shirt pocket and I would have been somewhere in the middle of Beijing, late for an appointment and with no lifeline.
So as we drive along the next 20 minutes in uncomfortable silence, I find myself thinking about a scene from an Austin Powers movie, the one where Goldmember asks Dr. Evil: “Can I paint his yoo-hoo gold? It’s kind of my thing, you know.”
And that’s when Dr. Evil goes, “How ‘bout no, you crazy Dutch bastard?”
So we finally get to my destination — a 30 minute ride that seemed like an hour — and when I get out of the cab, he just smiled and said:
“Please to meet you.”
On the way home, I again got a driver who had no clue where he was headed.
And that was just fine with me.
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Comments
By Kimberlycgt
February 8, 2010 2:39 PM | Link to this
nice read. I would love to follow you on twitter. By the way, did any one hear that some chinese hacker had busted twitter yesterday again.
By Jillena
August 19, 2008 2:53 PM | Link to this
OMG! This would only happen to you! Too funny. If you only had this on video! LOL!!!!