Helpless in a strange place.
Living in a new environment always brings its own set of challenges. For me, moving to Xi'an brought a great deal of city shock. Coming from a small town, it was difficult to get used to the traffic, the noise and the extra steps to accomplishing certain tasks. With a lot of patience and technology, I feel like I have learned how to navigate these challenges with some ease.
One challenge that has been particularly difficult, however, has caused a great deal of anxiety for me and one that I haven't figured out how to solve.
The problem is being helpless in certain situations. For me in particular, it's in transportation and even, at times, basic communication to solve seemingly simple problems.
Getting around Xi'an requires you to rely on public transportation and taxi's. Unfortunately due to a possible lack of literacy, this can create many problems. Understanding the times of day and places to get transportation is also difficult as many resources simply don't exist and everything just depends on variables outside of anyone's control.
On multiple occasions Rachel and I have found ourselves unable to get a taxi or find a bus to get home. We have waited more than 45 minutes hoping a taxi would stop, walked quite a distance to find bus stops and used technology to the best of my ability to help get a ride. Luckily we have always made it to our destination, but not without a great deal of panic, fury and frustration.
Many others have experienced this too, but for some reason it doesn't have the same panic induing affect that is has on me. So I wondered why it was so difficult for me to cope and I identified the underlying cause; feeling helpless. In addition, feeling helpless, when you have a child who is relying on you for everything results in an exponential increase of worry fear and anxiety.
I am a natural leader and problem solver, I also prefer to be in control of my situation. I hate not being able to drive in Xi'an even though it would be scary as hell, and I like to plan things in advance. I'm savvy with technology and figured out how to use the Chinese version of Google maps in about 2 days.
With all of this in mind, it still baffles me that I am unable to so often solve the simple problem of getting a ride.
There is an app here in China called Didi that is just like Uber but in Chinese. I can even use it to call a taxi and pay. Unfortunately there are times when there are simply no taxi's available or, for whatever unknown reason, are not near my location.
I have had situations where taxi after taxi passes us by and I've even had taxi's stop and then refuse to take us to our destination. I once got in a taxi and told him the address it was only, 4 miles away, and he stopped and refused to go to where I needed to go. I've had taxi's refuse to take us once they saw we were foreigners and I have had taxi drivers who were unable to follow the blue navigation line on the Baidu maps navigation (Chinese Google). Even when the navigation was in Chinese!
We have three metro (subway) lines in Xi'an now and this had made getting around a little easier, but even getting to a metro stop can be a challenge.
This feeling of helplessness is likely just a fraction of what some refugees experience on a regular basis. At times, I just want to cry or scream or stand in the middle of the road until someone stops.
Since the majority of the people I know, do not have cars it's is not as simple as just calling someone up for a ride. Even using Didi can be a challenge because often the drivers just call you to find out where you are and since I don't speak Chinese I have to rely on a kind person near me to talk to the taxi driver or just repeat "ting bu dong" (I don't know) over and over again until the just look at the map on the app.
This has been by far the most frustrating aspect of our experience here in Xi'an. Often there are just simply not enough taxi's to transport the 8-11 million people who reside in the city. This results in us not going anywhere simply to avid the time and stress of travel. If you've ever been stranded with limited options you can understand this feeling of helplessness.
I look forward to returning to the US where I can once again control my own travel and navigate on my own.
One challenge that has been particularly difficult, however, has caused a great deal of anxiety for me and one that I haven't figured out how to solve.
The problem is being helpless in certain situations. For me in particular, it's in transportation and even, at times, basic communication to solve seemingly simple problems.
Getting around Xi'an requires you to rely on public transportation and taxi's. Unfortunately due to a possible lack of literacy, this can create many problems. Understanding the times of day and places to get transportation is also difficult as many resources simply don't exist and everything just depends on variables outside of anyone's control.
On multiple occasions Rachel and I have found ourselves unable to get a taxi or find a bus to get home. We have waited more than 45 minutes hoping a taxi would stop, walked quite a distance to find bus stops and used technology to the best of my ability to help get a ride. Luckily we have always made it to our destination, but not without a great deal of panic, fury and frustration.
Many others have experienced this too, but for some reason it doesn't have the same panic induing affect that is has on me. So I wondered why it was so difficult for me to cope and I identified the underlying cause; feeling helpless. In addition, feeling helpless, when you have a child who is relying on you for everything results in an exponential increase of worry fear and anxiety.
I am a natural leader and problem solver, I also prefer to be in control of my situation. I hate not being able to drive in Xi'an even though it would be scary as hell, and I like to plan things in advance. I'm savvy with technology and figured out how to use the Chinese version of Google maps in about 2 days.
With all of this in mind, it still baffles me that I am unable to so often solve the simple problem of getting a ride.
There is an app here in China called Didi that is just like Uber but in Chinese. I can even use it to call a taxi and pay. Unfortunately there are times when there are simply no taxi's available or, for whatever unknown reason, are not near my location.
I have had situations where taxi after taxi passes us by and I've even had taxi's stop and then refuse to take us to our destination. I once got in a taxi and told him the address it was only, 4 miles away, and he stopped and refused to go to where I needed to go. I've had taxi's refuse to take us once they saw we were foreigners and I have had taxi drivers who were unable to follow the blue navigation line on the Baidu maps navigation (Chinese Google). Even when the navigation was in Chinese!
We have three metro (subway) lines in Xi'an now and this had made getting around a little easier, but even getting to a metro stop can be a challenge.
This feeling of helplessness is likely just a fraction of what some refugees experience on a regular basis. At times, I just want to cry or scream or stand in the middle of the road until someone stops.
Since the majority of the people I know, do not have cars it's is not as simple as just calling someone up for a ride. Even using Didi can be a challenge because often the drivers just call you to find out where you are and since I don't speak Chinese I have to rely on a kind person near me to talk to the taxi driver or just repeat "ting bu dong" (I don't know) over and over again until the just look at the map on the app.
This has been by far the most frustrating aspect of our experience here in Xi'an. Often there are just simply not enough taxi's to transport the 8-11 million people who reside in the city. This results in us not going anywhere simply to avid the time and stress of travel. If you've ever been stranded with limited options you can understand this feeling of helplessness.
I look forward to returning to the US where I can once again control my own travel and navigate on my own.
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