Umbrella Warfare

I fancy myself a rather seasoned urban commuter.  Having grown up in a city full of hustle and bustle, spending my formative mornings with Mom and Noah, pushing our way onto the M104 bus en route to the Ethical Culture School, crowded commutes have never fazed me.  My penchant for subways has already been documented here.  I'm often perplexed when people eschew a subway commute for a cab simply because they want to avoid the crowds and chaos of rush hour (I suppose sitting by oneself in a car in traffic is preferable to some than the thought of forced physical contact with random strangers).

I've survived morning commutes in New York and Washington, so it's not as if I was totally daunted by the prospect of going to and from work on the subway every day here in Shanghai.  I even had ample preparation from my 10 weeks working here in 2008.  The commute in Shanghai isn't categorically different from the other cities I've lived in.  It's just, like everything in China....bigger.  The crowds are often comical, particularly when two metro trains going in opposite directions arrive at a station simultaneously.  But, aside from some frustrating gridlock due to Chinese laziness (remember the escalator picture?), and the even more frustrating tendency to refuse to move in to the subway car rather than just camping out right by the door (many Americans share this habit with the Chinese), my commute to and from work in Shanghai is pretty manageable indeed.

With one notable exception.  If there weren't already a classic riddle with the answer of "when it's raining"**, the question of "under what specific circumstances is commuting in Shanghai consistently and objectively more difficult than normal?" would make for a pretty good quiz.  For some reason, people in this city are far better prepared for the weather than people in other cities in which I've lived.  In other words, everyone carries an umbrella when it's raining, and everyone has it out at the same time.  The result: a maze of umbrellas with Chinese people underneath the navigation of which (particularly when you're carrying an umbrella of your own) is incredibly difficult.  This morning, the first rainy day in about a month, I must of snagged my umbrella on at least 4 passersby on my way to work.  Nobody seems to mind getting conked on the head with flying umbrellas -- it's just part of a rainy commute.

There is one saving grace though.  After weaving in and out of opposing umbrellas for half an hour, I was greeted at my office building by yet another example of a Chinese job-for-the-sake-of-having-a-job.  Three (yes...THREE) people were standing at the entrance of my office building with plastic bags, waiting eagerly to take my then-closed umbrella and slip it inside, thereby eliminating the rainy umbrella drip.  What innovation!  Of course, by the time one is ready to take the umbrella out of the plastic bag, one has forgotten why it was in there in the first place, and the puddle of water that has collected drips over one's pants and shoes anyway.  Oh well.

(I defy anyone to try going up that staircase with any sort of efficiency and not take out any Chinese along the way...)

**That riddle, for those who don't know it, is as follows: Murgatroyd works at a tall office building.  In the mornings when he arrives at work, he usually gets into the elevator, presses 12, and walks up several flights of stairs to the 29th floor where he works.  Sometimes, however, he goes straight up to 29 on the elevator.  In the evenings, he always, without fail, takes the elevator straight down to 1.  What could possibly account for such bizarre behavior?

The answer is (of course) that Murgatroyd is a dwarf, and can't reach the 29th floor by himself.  So under normal circumstances he just pushes the highest floor he can reach (12) and then walks the rest of the way up.  But when it's raining, and he has an umbrella, he can use it as added height to reach the 29th floor button.  Before anyone asks: a) you can pick any name you want.  I picked Murgatroyd thank you very much and b) I know, I know, the riddle falls apart when you assume that any decent person sharing the elevator with Murgatroyd would just push the 29th floor button for him.