By William Dodson

A simple taxi ride from Shanghai to Suzhou put me very much in mind of developing contracts with Chinese – even the simplest of contracts. Very seldom in business do Chinese adhere to the Letter of the Law, while they exorcise its Spirit at their earliest convenience. And if the agreement is verbal, then watch out!

The deal was this: for 300RMB – including tolls – the Shanghai driver would take me to Suzhou. Assumptions: the taxi driver with whom I made the deal will be the one taking me; only the taxi driver and I will be making the trip; the trip will be direct, along the HuNing Highway that connects the two cities; the trip should take about an hour, since it was already 8pm, past Shanghai rush hour. Train and bus tickets back home were sold out.

I explained to the police in Suzhou the reason I refused to pay the taxi driver the 300RMB – instead, offering 200rmb – was that the driver and the taxi ring had deceived me, wasted my time and scared me half to death. Mind you, it was I who had called the police, because a Deal is a Deal and by golly this interpreting agreements Chinese Way was seriously getting on my nerves at the end of the trip, near 11pm.

The first carload of police called to the scene listened to me speak for about a minute, then said, “Look, take this down to the station. There’s some girl a couple blocks down who’s slit her wrists and taken some drugs, we’ve got to go.” They got back into their car and screeched away.

Less than a minute later a second patrol car appeared on the scene. This is what I told the leader of the squad:

I figured something wasn’t right when the Shanghai driver pulled off the highway just after the tolls. A group of taxis and men smoking fags stood about. The driver, a Mr Ma, told me to get into another taxi. As I switched taxis, Mr. Ma told me to give the new driver the 300rmb when we got to Suzhou. I’d done such a thing before in the past, so, though I was not happy about the switch, I was still on familiar ground. The new taxi driver got into the driver’s seat, and another, short, stout fellow piled into the passenger seat. I thought the addition of this fellow odd, but didn’t say anything, as the fellow was irritatingly talkative, asking a lot of questions about anything that seem to cross his mind. He struck me as a Northern Chinese, or, at least, from Northern Jiangsu.

The trip went along smoothly until the Kunshan exit. Kunshan is halfway to Suzhou from Shanghai. I thought perhaps the driver wanted to save some money on tolls, and chose to take the 312 Highway, which was newly paved just two years before. Once in downtown Kunshan though, I quizzed the driver on exactly where we were going. I know Kunshan quite well from working on a project in the area several years back. “There is the Science and Technology Exhibition Hall,” I pointed out to the driver, “and there is the International Building. You’re going to take the 312 back to Suzhou, right?”

The driver didn’t answer. I asked the question again. After a moment he turned around abruptly and said, “40-minutes; you’ll be in Suzhou in 40-minutes.”

Fifteen minutes later we were in the countryside, outside Kunshan. No where near 312. It wasn’t just dark; it was black. Thoughts of two Chinese guys stopping off in the middle of a field, robbing me, possibly beating me and perhaps even killing me pounded at my skull.

Soon, though, it became clear the driver was simply lost. We stopped at a brothel, pink lighting spilling onto the porch. The driver shouted out his window to ask directions. One of the toughs near the doorway shouted back. Minutes later we were at a small bus station – more like a car park, really. The bald, talkative fellow in the front seat piled out of the car, took his belongings from the trunk, and bolted in the direction of a large traditional Chinese gate.

Another half hour more of being lost in the countryside near Kunshan, asking for directions every ten minutes, eventually brought us to Highway 312. I was fuming. I sent a text message ahead to a Chinese friend to meet me at the front gate of my apartment complex, and to bring a security guard. I was damned if I was going to pay full. And I was willing to argue through the night about it, if needed.

Nearly three hours after setting out from Shanghai I arrived at the gate. I stepped out of the car, waited for my friend. I needed the friend and the guard as witnesses, and, hopefully, as a restraint should things get nasty.

When my friend arrived with a guard in tow I broke it to the driver I refused to pay him the 300rmb we had agreed on. I enumerated all my grievances, as well as the fact that he had scared the wits out of me in the countryside. We had an agreement, simple, direct, and he took latitude with it. It didn’t matter whether I was a Westerner or not; he had wasted my time and had not fulfilled his obligation. Of course, he disagreed.

One of the reasons he disagreed was that he promised the taxi ring back in Shanghai 220rmb, while he received the balance of payment. I told him that was his problem, not mine. If he had had a side arrangement, I insisted, he should have asked me if it was alright to take an additional hour or more to go out of my way for his friend or whoever baldie was.

Every once in a while my friend would step in to re-phrase what I said, to hammer the point home. When it was clear the driver would accept nothing less than the original amount agreed to I called the police.

Soon after the second carload of cops arrived. The driver immediately began speaking in the local Suzhou dialect to the leader of the group of police, a tall, heavy-set fellow with a severe crew cut.

I immediately interrupted, said to the officer, “Number one. It was I who called you; not him. Number two…” I looked at the driver, “You speak Mandarin. No local dialect.” He smiled coyly, knowing he was caught out.

Crew Cut said to the driver, after I explained my side of the story, “You wasted this guy’s time, and you scared him witless. Take whatever he gives you.” The driver was a little surprised, unhappy, but not angry. He knew he was beat. “Look,” he said softly, “I really need 250rmb, ok? I have to pay the Shanghai guys, and I pay for my gas.”

I conferred with my Chinese friend a moment, who felt the guy should get 250rmb. Though I still wanted only to pay 200rmb, I could see my friend’s point, and seven more dollars in my pocket wasn’t going to make me any happier. However, I had won the case, and that was what really mattered to me.

I forked over the 250rmb to a grateful driver. The police waved their goodbye, and I walked through the gate home, feeling triumphant and exhausted.

One of the more wearying parts of living and doing business in China is that even the simplest transaction can be fraught with liberal interpretation. There seems to be no end to the number of questions you can ask someone in China about the terms of a straight-forward transaction, and still not get at their true intention.

I see over and over again here in China that negotiation, even after settled, has enough wiggle-room in the interpretation through which to drive a Mercedes truck; which, of course, rubs raw my sensibilities as an American. As important as asking “Twenty Questions,” though, is developing a sixth-sense of when a transaction is veering out of control. In China, some of the simplest directives, most explicitly proscribed activities become fiascoes; some comical, some tragic, many frustrating. Once then, you have developed that sixth-sense for when your counterpart is taking advantage of you, know when to back out of the deal. Have an exit strategy, even if it means getting off on the side of a highway.

And always have the police emergency number on hand: 110. My Chinese friend told me, “If you really did not feel safe when they told you to change taxis, and the second fellow got in, you could have called 110. The police will come to sort things out, and, if need be, they will take you all the way back to Suzhou.” Without detours, I would hope.

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William Dodson, General Manager Asia Base A/S - Law & Projects, This is China!