This has happened in every Asian country we’ve visited thus far.
We find ourselves hurtling down the highway a good 30 or 40 miles an hour faster than every other vehicle while weaving in and out among them all, irrespective of their large mass or comparative speed, with total disregard to painted lines on the road, or which parts of the road have been designated as a berm.
Again and again, almost every time you take a taxi in Asia, this happens. It happens on the freeway, in the city, or in the country. Everything must be passed, on the left, on the right, it makes little difference where the opening occurs, they’ll move into it every time. Horns and lights beep and flash constantly to signal that we’re coming through, one way or another. Cut them off, make them brake suddenly, no matter. They’d do it to you if they had the momentary advantage, every time.
No one gets upset. Rarely is a horn beeped or a bright headlight flashed in anger. They’re just communicating, sometimes very insistently if you happen to be blocking them, even if you’re in a long line of other vehicles and have no way to not block the person behind you. They’ll just lay on that horn because now they’re communicating to the person in front of you, or maybe the person 6 cars ahead of you.
It’s possible that Asian cab drivers scare American passengers on purpose so the interlopers will leave their country and never want to come back. It’s possible they do it to show respect to their most important business client – the passenger – for whom they will cheat death itself to impress by saving them a few seconds at the margins of a short, about to be shorter, life. There’s really no way to tell because none of them have sufficient English that might sustain such a complex query.
Apparently, the role of a most excellent race cab driver and speaking English are mutually exclusive endeavors, so we American passengers, a.k.a. helpless bags of water, can only share our concerns with other American passengers in the same boat with us. Rather like being on the Titanic, as your platform on the world gradually recedes to water level, and only having other tourists to make quips about it with. Funny for everyone I guess, but quite futile.
In the midst of a drive last night, my spouse observed that, one way or another, the terror will be over soon. And this was somehow comforting to me, who added that it is with some equanimity as to which outcome would be preferred since the main point was at least an end to that episode of sheer terror was on the horizon.
I noted that only in Asia would an American pray for a traffic jam to get stuck in, because then at least they wouldn’t be hurtling down the highway a good 30 or 40 miles an hour faster than every other car while weaving in and out among them all, with total disregard to painted lines on the road, or which parts of the road have been designated as a berm, and which parts for rational driving.
And then, you arrive, it’s all smiles, the cab fare changes hands with minimal tipping, because minimal tipping is customary here, and you proceed on with life with an overwhelming sense of relief that you survived. And maybe that’s the whole point – to give you that gift of, as Frank Zappa wrote in music, “Blessed Relief” – as you walk away into the rest of your life.
B_Imperial