My Favorite Beijing Cabbie

In preparation, I had written down the address of the café I was looking for in characters as well as pinyin and also a list of larger streets in the area. However, when I hopped in the cab, I merely had to say the address before the cab driver pulled away from the curb without commenting on my mispronunciation. We rode in silence for a while, but then I noticed the sidelong glances he cast at me. Finally, he asked me what nationality I was. When I told him I was American, in Beijing to study Chinese, he went off on a lecture about how Chinese is a very difficult language to learn, so I have to study hard. As if I didn’t know! He kept on going about how English is much easier because there are no characters or tones. He went on to say that if you mispronounce something in English, it is not a big deal, but if you mispronounce something in Chinese, nobody will understand what you are saying.

Then, he told me that what he was listening to on the radio was a traditional Chinese story. He asked me if I knew any traditional Chinese stories, and I told him what I read last semester. He was quite impressed that I had read the classics (Thank you, Xu Laoshi!) and we chatted about Outlaws of the Marsh, which is his favorite.

I was so surprised to find such an intellectual cab driver, and I was a bit sad when we arrived. As I climbed out of the cab, the driver called out to me “Maybe you will take my cab again in the future!”