One day three of my teammates and I were on our way to see some friends and we decided to take a mian bao che (面包车) "bread loaf van" which are boxy minivans that look like bread loaves with no suspension to speak of. They gather out by the "three wheeled vehicles" at our gate. The drivers are not licensed for taxi service so there are certain places with heavy police surveillance that they avoid. Instead of taking one to four people like a taxi they will take up to nine or ten strangers for just 5 (五) yuan (元) each thus earning a similar fare or even about 5 元 ($0.77) more than a taxi can charge for the same trip. If their mian bao is not full they will stop at most bus stops looking for more people/元 to add to their cargo. Comfort on these rides can definitely vary according to the number of passengers but they are sure to be quicker than a public bus.
During our mian bao ride we saw this bike (pictured below) and Kelly swiftly caught a picture! I've seen up to 5 on a bike before but not the fully grown types. This was pretty impressive but not the reason this ride was so memorable.
When the four of us got into this van I was unknowingly on the verge of one of my most goofy moods in China ever. We hopped into this mian bao with about 3 or 4 students (strangers to us and each other) and we needed one or two more passengers for a full load. As we came to the first bus stop our driver got out of the car and started trying to convince people to get in the mian bao. This is annoying to all passengers as we would like to get to our destination quickly.
At this point I decided it was my duty as a foreigner to help him lure some more customers in our mian bao. There was a good crowd at the bust station because it was a weekend and so I started calling to them from our opened sliding door to come get in our mian bao. Nothing. No response. In America someone would have yelled something back - especially among a college aged crowd. I thought, "This must mean I need to try harder ;-)" So I started singing the words to a song, "Hey girl over there, look at me" in Chinese which is a funny and wildly popular song. Two of my teammates, Kelly and Faith, joined in and soon we were belting this out at the top of our lungs. I can't remember exactly what I said, but from then on I attempted bombastic communication with anyone I saw as we passed cars or other groups at bus stops. The students with us were quite unresponsive, not knowing what to make of this unbridled public display of wildness. Kelly, Faith, and I were laughing hysterically while Michael stoically, embarrassedly sat between two Chinese students in the back seat (pictured below). As we arrived at our destination I reluctantly jumped down from my wooden bench between the car seats thinking, "Whatever we do tonight won't be as much fun as that ride."
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