"You can't smoke in here!" I tell my cab driver incredulously.
He looks in the rear view mirror to see if this foreign tai tai is serious.
I glare back.
Serious as a heart attack my glower insists.
(As serious as lung cancer, emphysema, or COPD. As serious as the bronchial swelling, airway constricting asthma that plagues my eight-year-old, and is triggered by, among other things, cigarette smoke.)
He is visibly crestfallen as he notes the 88 seconds remaining on the red light. (Stop lights in China don't use yellow. Just countdown clocks of red and green, and still the process is messy at best.)
He gestures at the cabbie next to us. His cab void of patrons and his cigarette lit.
"If I was in his cab I wouldn't pay him." (And by QD law I wouldn't have to.)
He looks at me once more for confirmation. Which I am more than happy to give him.
"If you smoke I won't pay," I tell him bluntly. (My Mandarin is somehow most fluent when my stress level is raised.)
These are the magic words.
Slowly he slips the much desired nicotine into his chest pocket, and begins a long guttural cough/throat clearing. He slaps his lighter onto the dash.
For a moment I wonder if he'll retaliate with irrational driving. But the heaviness of the mid-day traffic would prevent this. Instead he takes the long way home. Running up the toll by 15 cents.
The 15 cents that were well worth a smoke-free ride.
