Taxicab Confessionals

Taxi cab drivers in Beijing speak ZERO English. I have yet to meet a single one that spoke a word. Whenever you go somewhere, you have to know the location in Chinese. Often times, you need to know how to get there too.

But I just had the first cab driver who speaks English I've ever seen / heard of. And he was a conspiracy theorist.

On the 30 minute drive home, he explained to me how to identify North Korean spies (they don't ask for receipts in cabs), Chinese spies (they do ask for receipts), how China was preparing for an invasion of Japan, how the US was getting ready to jointly invade Japan with China, among other things. It was great, whenever this guy would explain invade, he used the word "fight", and would do a little shadowboxing routine, taking his hands off the wheel and scaring the crap out of me.