Driving with Ivy

I'd like to take a moment to explain to you the hilarious adventure that is being chauffeured about town by my dear coworker Ivy. I have ridden in her car on several occasions. First off I'd like to say she is very brave to drive these mean streets of Shenzhen. Especially considering how much pride she takes in her new car. I'd imagine that a paint job and a fender would have a very short lifespan here. This is an easy observation to make. Just about every car I see has a gash or some kind of scuff mark on it. Even the nice cars don't go unblemished. It's not unusual to see Mercedes' and BMW's that look like Freddy Kruger has dragged his hand across the door panels.
The more and more I ride on these roads the more I can't help but compare the drivers here to ants. You ever see ants crawling into a hole? Walking right over each other with no regard to personal space? It's the same thing, vehicles constantly swerving left and right, fast and frantic. Then there's Ivy. She's like the tortoise. de-dump, de-dump... passing by the rabbit who's just crashed into a painted tunnel. People fly past her angrily honking, gesturing with their cars by swerving around her front end dangerously close. All the while she's talking to herself in mumbled disbelief and indignation. I don't know what she's saying because it's in Chinese but I get the gist. I stifle a giggle.
What really cracks me up is her refusal to multitask. Stop the car before rolling down the windows. Stop the car to turn on the air conditioning. Stop the car to honk at the guy who's trying to merge into our lane. What? Christ! keep going, we're merging Ivy. But no she has stopped on the express way and she's staring at this guy who's trying to avoid driving into a road crew and she's honking at him. Mumbling biting curses under her breath. God I want to laugh, but I must stay composed.
Leaving an underground parking garage Kevin, who's in the back seat with his wife, asks Ivy if she can help with the life support. The car's been parked for hours and the air inside is stale and suppressive. "Oh, windows!" raising a finger in the air to accompany the light bulb that has just flashed in her head. "Oh, ok, no." Apparently it's not good to roll down windows in a parking garage. I feel for Kevin because I am on the verge of jumping out of the now moving car. That horrible claustrophobia of stifling parked car heat is kicking in. If we don't get our windows rolled down soon I'm going to freak out. After several drawn out minutes in the parking garage, we took a couple of unfortunate turns, we emerge out into the street. She pulls into traffic and stops. "Oh, windows."
Cars honk.
Speaking of wrong turns, her sense of direction is a little screwy. I've been here for two months and I can tell where I am by using buildings as landmarks. But she is oblivious to this method of location detection. Instead we drive down streets as if she's never been on them before. Steady and stubborn, carefully analyzing the car in front of us. Many of the miles ridden in her car have been spent going the wrong way, lost, circling blocks over and over. Oops we're on the freeway now, hey there goes our off ramp, I think this is the sidewalk. In my mind if I miss a turn, I'll flip a euwie. Her solution is to keep going straight. All I can do is sit and look over my shoulder at the diminishing destination and mumble "um, um..."

All stereotypes aside, driving with Ivy is always an adventure. First and foremost I am lucky that she is willing to drive me around on her time off and be my guide. She is great fun and I'll hop a ride with her any day. I'll just try not to giggle.