![\"P1030156\"](\"https:\/\/maxonweb.net\/chinablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/p10301561.jpg\")
<\/a> Let me tell one story to illustrate.\u00a0 The Shanghai train station where we departed for our train to Suzhou is gigantic.\u00a0 And it was filled to capacity and beyond.\u00a0 Like the busiest day at Disney World.\u00a0 But people at Disney wait in lines.\u00a0 Here everyone gathers in mass and pushes and wiggles their way to the front.\u00a0 If you politely allow someone to go before you, 12 people will slip in also.\u00a0 Maybe 20.\u00a0 We learned quickly how to do the “Shanghai shuffle” as John coined it — pedestrians and vehicles alike seem to have an intuitive ability to blend (like playing cards being shuffled).\u00a0 And because John and I were traveling with our friends who speak Mandarin, we had to learn to shuffle and keep together.\u00a0 Virtually no one speaks English.\u00a0 Getting lost would be disastrous.<\/p>\nGetting off the train in Suzhou was memorable.\u00a0 You have only 3 minutes to board or disembark.\u00a0 The train waits for no man.\u00a0 As soon as you step off the train, you must keep moving.\u00a0 The hordes behind you close in fast.\u00a0 There is no space to stop and readjust backpacks or look around.\u00a0 The crowds determine your pace.\u00a0 We had to schlep our stuff quite far inside the station, and then we arrived in a large, teeming plaza.\u00a0 It was raining and the queue for the taxis was about 45 minutes long.\u00a0 Tongan and Rui left us to go buy our return tickets, and we battled crowds, beggars, and people hawking umbrellas, maps, and illegal taxi rides.\u00a0 I learned to say “bu” in a very stern voice accompanied by shaking of the head and a waving away of the hand.\u00a0 That stops most vendors but not the beggars.\u00a0 One old woman told me in Mandarin “not enough” after I tossed a coin into her bowl.<\/p>\n
There are so many beggars in the cities, we could not give to all, but we chose the most desperate looking. Those for whom my heart would break.<\/p>\n
Rui came back after 30-40 minutes\u00a0 and we were almost to the taxi stand.\u00a0 Tongan was getting the royal run-around, being sent hither and yon to buy our tickets.\u00a0 no signs were posted anywhere, and when he’d finally get to the ticket window, he’d be told to go elsewhere.\u00a0 Finally, he got the tickets but he was a couple of miles away, so we got in the taxi and\u00a0 went looking for him.\u00a0 Mobs of people were everywhere and hundreds of taxis zipped in and around them all.\u00a0 Stopping to pick him up was a challenge, but we did it.<\/p>\n
Off we went to our hotel, thinking all was well.\u00a0 But on the way we called the hotel, and they only had room reservations for Tongan and Rui.<\/p>\n
After many calls, it was finally straightened out but the taxi ride, during the phone calls, added to the stress.\u00a0 We learned that 100,000 extra people were in town for a medical convention and there were no extra rooms anywhere.\u00a0 But worse than that — perhaps —\u00a0 was the traffic.\u00a0 In Suzhou, besides, cars, taxis, buses, and bicycles, there are motor scooters and motorized rickshaws — and of course pedestrians.\u00a0 The taxi driver thought he was the only one on the road or that he should have been. He\u00a0 drove with one hand on the steering wheel and one on the horn.\u00a0 He wove back and forth between the two lanes, and often he would just drive down the center, dotted white line making his own lane.\u00a0 No person or vehicle ever stopped him except once when he “slowed” down for a police car.<\/p>\n
We were very happy to arrive at our hotel and leave the PANDEMONIUM behind for a time.\u00a0 The hotel, however, is a story for another time.\u00a0 Not quite up to American standards!\u00a0 But an interesting experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
John taught Tongan and Rui a new word: pandemonium.\u00a0 They love it and have gotten to use it many times in the last few days. Let me tell one story to illustrate.\u00a0 The Shanghai train station where we departed for our train to Suzhou is gigantic.\u00a0 And it was filled to capacity and beyond.\u00a0 Like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-suzhou"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxonweb.net\/chinablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxonweb.net\/chinablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxonweb.net\/chinablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxonweb.net\/chinablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxonweb.net\/chinablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/maxonweb.net\/chinablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":493,"href":"https:\/\/maxonweb.net\/chinablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201\/revisions\/493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxonweb.net\/chinablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxonweb.net\/chinablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxonweb.net\/chinablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}