Driving Miss - er - Daisy
The powers that be have deemed that it is not good for us to be so isolated, and have assigned a car and driver to us, at least for the next two months until we find our feet (as it were). S of course used to have a two minute walk to work when he lived in the apartment, now his journey consists of a 5 minute walk to the estate's shuttle bus, a 12 minute drive on the shuttle bus to the metro station, a 15 minute journey on the train, then a 10 minute walk at the other end to work. Not nearly as arduous as his daily journey down to London used to be, but still not as nice as nipping round the corner. So at 8.00am our new driver appeared - his first job of the day was to take S to work, then he was to return to our house to pick me up - then the world (or Shanghai at least) would be my oyster.
The first problem we encountered was that he spoke very little English. In fact, the only English words he appeared to know were Thank You and OK. S phoned me when he got to work to warn me, and to give me the driver's mobile phone number - although that was not likely be much use. I decided that baby steps (as always) would be the way forward, and made up my mind to go to the supermarket near the Metro station - I had a flash card for that.
Everything went very well - he arrived back at the house at 10.30 and I showed him the flash card. "OK!" he said, clearly thrilled, and off we went. I found the word for Supermarket in my Mandarin phrase book, and spent the journey learning it - I wanted him to know where I was going, so I didn't have to try and mime that although I was going to the Metro station, I wasn't actually going anywhere on the Metro. It could have got very messy. At 10.45, he dropped me off in the cycle lane outside the supermarket, I arranged to meet him in the same cycle lane at 1.00pm, and away I went to get a trolley.
I was happily wandering round the CD department about 25 minutes later, browsing such titles as "Perfect Music Of Car", "Wandering on the Country Footways", and "Li guyi - the Best Famous Collection over Century", when much to my surprise, the driver appeared by my side. "OK!" he said, mysteriously. I was completely confused. Had 2 hours passed so quickly? Had my watch stopped? Had his watch stopped? Was I messing up his lunch hour? Was he like most other chinese people and fascinated to see what goes in a Western trolley? Had he misunderstood my 1.00pm mime and thought I meant 1 minute? He seemed quite happy, so I decided the best thing to do was to continue with my shopping (the only thing on my list was a mixing bowl - I'd only really come for a look round), but perhaps to continue as quickly as I could.
So I whizzed round at a pace, the driver following at my heels, with me missing out entire aisles (I didn't feel it appropriate to go down the bra aisle, or the feminine protection aisle, and I knew it was pointless going down any chinese food aisles as I didn't really have time to stand and work out what the things were) - resulting in me being at the checkout less than 15 minutes later. S would have been proud of me. But by this time, I'd come to realise that whatever his reasons for coming to get me were, he was very nice and extremely keen to help. He looked in my trolley anxiously - he obviously thought I'd come to get a week's shopping and couldn't find anything. "Carrefour!" he suddenly cried, thereby instantly appearing to have increased his command of the English language by half - "Carrefour!!". As we left the supermarket and made our way to the car, I realised why he'd come to get me - he had parked in the car park to avoid having to park in the cycle lane (I don't actually think it's allowed) - and quite possibly he'd come to help carry my bags too.
In order not to hurt his feelings (and because I wasn't sure how to mime "Yes, I have been to Carrefour and think it's reasonable and probably likely to be extremely useful on occasion, but there are times where I prefer to come to a smaller, more authentically Chinese supermarket, and today is one of those days, especially as I have a flash card for it"), I agreed "Carrefour" with him and off we went. We parked in the car park, agreed 1.00pm (again), he gestured to the cafe to indicate he was going to have his dinner, and I was away with my trolley again. Breaking my own record for the second time in a day, I whizzed round the giant supermarket in under an hour. I did get some very nice strawberries, some cooked chicken for tea, some cooked duck for my dinner, and a bunch of bananas - the bananas are about 2 inches long - J will be thrilled. I didn't find my mixing bowl, but I did get home safely, so all's well that ends well - or, as they say here in Shanghai - "OK!"
The first problem we encountered was that he spoke very little English. In fact, the only English words he appeared to know were Thank You and OK. S phoned me when he got to work to warn me, and to give me the driver's mobile phone number - although that was not likely be much use. I decided that baby steps (as always) would be the way forward, and made up my mind to go to the supermarket near the Metro station - I had a flash card for that.
Everything went very well - he arrived back at the house at 10.30 and I showed him the flash card. "OK!" he said, clearly thrilled, and off we went. I found the word for Supermarket in my Mandarin phrase book, and spent the journey learning it - I wanted him to know where I was going, so I didn't have to try and mime that although I was going to the Metro station, I wasn't actually going anywhere on the Metro. It could have got very messy. At 10.45, he dropped me off in the cycle lane outside the supermarket, I arranged to meet him in the same cycle lane at 1.00pm, and away I went to get a trolley.
I was happily wandering round the CD department about 25 minutes later, browsing such titles as "Perfect Music Of Car", "Wandering on the Country Footways", and "Li guyi - the Best Famous Collection over Century", when much to my surprise, the driver appeared by my side. "OK!" he said, mysteriously. I was completely confused. Had 2 hours passed so quickly? Had my watch stopped? Had his watch stopped? Was I messing up his lunch hour? Was he like most other chinese people and fascinated to see what goes in a Western trolley? Had he misunderstood my 1.00pm mime and thought I meant 1 minute? He seemed quite happy, so I decided the best thing to do was to continue with my shopping (the only thing on my list was a mixing bowl - I'd only really come for a look round), but perhaps to continue as quickly as I could.
So I whizzed round at a pace, the driver following at my heels, with me missing out entire aisles (I didn't feel it appropriate to go down the bra aisle, or the feminine protection aisle, and I knew it was pointless going down any chinese food aisles as I didn't really have time to stand and work out what the things were) - resulting in me being at the checkout less than 15 minutes later. S would have been proud of me. But by this time, I'd come to realise that whatever his reasons for coming to get me were, he was very nice and extremely keen to help. He looked in my trolley anxiously - he obviously thought I'd come to get a week's shopping and couldn't find anything. "Carrefour!" he suddenly cried, thereby instantly appearing to have increased his command of the English language by half - "Carrefour!!". As we left the supermarket and made our way to the car, I realised why he'd come to get me - he had parked in the car park to avoid having to park in the cycle lane (I don't actually think it's allowed) - and quite possibly he'd come to help carry my bags too.
In order not to hurt his feelings (and because I wasn't sure how to mime "Yes, I have been to Carrefour and think it's reasonable and probably likely to be extremely useful on occasion, but there are times where I prefer to come to a smaller, more authentically Chinese supermarket, and today is one of those days, especially as I have a flash card for it"), I agreed "Carrefour" with him and off we went. We parked in the car park, agreed 1.00pm (again), he gestured to the cafe to indicate he was going to have his dinner, and I was away with my trolley again. Breaking my own record for the second time in a day, I whizzed round the giant supermarket in under an hour. I did get some very nice strawberries, some cooked chicken for tea, some cooked duck for my dinner, and a bunch of bananas - the bananas are about 2 inches long - J will be thrilled. I didn't find my mixing bowl, but I did get home safely, so all's well that ends well - or, as they say here in Shanghai - "OK!"
posted by Linda at 3:17 PM
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