Each morning I wake up to my Chinese ring-tone alarm from my cell phone at 5:15, which is actually 5:10 because my clock is five minutes fast as I believe it will make me early to things, but I know its five minutes fast and I take it into account whenever I check the time. I start my normal routine and hop into the shower to close my eyes and basically fall back asleep for another half an hour or so. By that time my partner has gotten out of bed or back from her morning run and woken our son up. He’s nearly two years old and like a ninja in the morning. He always sneaks into the bathroom while I’m in the shower tears open the curtain and shouts something about this Allysia person, who we’ve never seen but he always talks about, causing me to leap to near impalement on the shower head. Best wake up call I’ve ever had. 
The Shanghai Commute has its Beginnings
Lionel Richie brings the world together
I’ve become accustomed to not driving anywhere anymore. Now I ride. I wonder how many taxis I’ve been in, in this one year. Half the time I don’t even really realize that there is someone driving the car, well, that is until they start slamming on the horn like there’s a prize in the steering column. Most of the time I’m I feel like I’m in my little bubble of safety that is anything but safe. They always remind you to put your safety belts on, but there aren’t any safety belts.
What gets overlooked are those people that are taking where I want to go after short bit of broken Mandarin is exchanged. One driver in particular driver showed me that I should pay attention to the cabbies a bit more.
I was coming back home around midnight after a night with some friends. I was sitting in the back of a nondescript cab just like any other staring off into my own thoughts somewhere. We were about half way over the Lupu bridge when a familiar tune came on the radio. Usually the sounds coming from the speakers are the Chinese version of “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” (at least that’s what it sounds like) or Chinese pop music, which if you thought pop music wasn’t aggravating enough, listen to that for an hour and a half coming home from the airport after a 19 hour flight. This tune cut through pollution of noise and carbon monoxide that constantly swirls around. It was a breath of fresh air and I couldn’t quite peg it down. Then as the chorus came up and Lionel Richie’s face popped into my head I was so out of my element that I forgot the nameless person in front of me was still behind the steering wheel and began singing. At the exact same time the man, who I had all but written off as being human, sang along with Lionel and I;
“Say You.
Say Me.
Say it for always.
That’s the way it should be.”
Our eyes meet in the rearview mirror and neither of us can keep it together. We both start laughing, though it only lasts a moment for we both get back to singing the song. I’ve had a lot of bad experiences in a cabs and a few memorable ones, but this has been the best to date and I think I’ll be hard pressed to top it. Lionel Richie has achieved god status in my book.Lionel Richie \’Say You, Say Me\’
Best T-Shirt to Person Combination of All Time
I have just seen the best t-shirt to person combination of all time. Living in China you see some strange shirts with words put together that make no sense or the word has multiple meanings and the designer used the wrong one.
This shirt was in a different category. This category is the ’shirts that read perfectly well but totally do not suite the wearer’ category. For example: Seeing a construction worker with a t-shirt imprinted with the Dolce & Gabbana emblem.
I was making the interchange at Zhongshan Park, waiting for the train to pick me up. I looked over to see a young Chinese woman, who weighed 70lbs soaking wet, wearing a skin tight, cropped sleeved, brown t-shirt. On the front of the shirt in big, pink, sparkle encrusted letters it read, “MEAN JOE GREENE”.
She noticed that I was standing sheepishly at the entrance to the station, so I went over to her and handed her my Coca-Cola. She selfishly downed the entire thing in one chug. I stared back blankly at her in dismay. She saw that I was broken hearted and knew she had to make it up to me. She tore off the shirt as I began to walk away, shouted “Hey kid… Catch.” tossed the number 75 jersey to me and carried on her way.
OK, so that last part didn’t really happen and if it did, her knowledge of Mean Joe Greene Superbowl commercials would have dropped the rating of T-shirt to person combination down a few pegs, although we would have had to create a whole new category.Mean Joe Greene Superbowl Coke Commercial
