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Driving is exhilarating, but parking is the pits
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Parking in Shanghai is a never-ending struggle. For a newbie driver like me, it’s a nightmare.
Every day, I face the harsh reality that the rigid maneuvers I learned in driving school are not going to help me much in jockeying for parking space.
Making matters worse, I am a stickler for parking correctly, with my tires not crossing any lines. I have heard appalling tales of motorists who breach lines having their cars scratched by the owners of cars that got wedged in too tightly.
In the two months since I bought my Mazda Axela, it has already suffered six scratches from my clumsy parking maneuvers. Even my rearview mirror has been scratched. In all cases, I am the culprit.
“Watch out, girl!” I am not immune from the yelling of parking lot managers who don’t take a shine to my parking skills. Oh, how I wish I had one of those fancy valets who park luxury cars for their owners!
I have marveled at computer-calculated magic moves, like the Audi commercial that shows a car parking itself and later returning itself to its owner via orders on a smartphone. But deep down, I know self-parking cars are still a long way off in Shanghai.
After getting a deep scratch on my car in an underground parking lot, I decided to steer clear of those vertical mazes for a while and look for curbside parking more attuned to my abilities.
To do that requires a set of street-smart skills that will be hard to encode in self-parking cars.
In Shanghai and other big Chinese cities, roadside parking areas exist in an under-regulated grey zone.
According to the Xinhua news agency, at least half of “parking fees” collected in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Tianjin don’t find their way into government coffers.
The fees are often “negotiable” if the driver agrees to no receipt. Many parking fee collectors aren’t who they claim to be.
I have heard enough urban legends about these impostors appearing as if out of nowhere to collect a parking fee and issue a fake receipt, then vanishing into thin air before anyone is the wiser.
Some roadside parking is managed by people who “claim” the public space as their own. They draw arbitrary lines on the street, don a uniform vest and sit on stools nearby exuding authority.
Recently, I got up the gumption to challenge these self-styled parking wardens. It occurred while I was on a motoring trip to Zhujiajiao, a scenic water town in suburban Qingpu District, with my friend Alex, a seasoned car owner.
As we approached the town, we drove along a street lined with parking guides trying to direct us to spots they controlled.
“There is no need to pay them,” said Alex, as he directed me toward a roadside area that he knew to be free public parking. As soon as we pulled up to the curb and stepped out of the car, we were assailed by a man looking self-important.
“Hey, girl, you need to pay for your parking,” he snarled.
“No,” replied Alex, shaking his head. “I have been here recently and we can park for free here.”
“Look,” said the man, obviously surprised by our combativeness and shifting into a more conciliatory tone. “It is not that I want to charge you. It is the rule of the company I work for.”
“Let’s talk this over when we come back,” I said. “Do you have receipts?”
He rummaged around in a full pocket and produced a crumpled piece of paper that he flashed in front of us, not giving us time to really look at it.
“Come on it is just 10 yuan,” he said, following us as we tried to walk away from the confrontation. “You young people cannot do things like this … ”
The words that trailed off were “…to an old man like me.”
I looked into his rheumy eyes and guessed him to be in his 60s. Ten yuan for unlimited parking is too good to be true in Shanghai, but age wasn’t the point here.
“Watch your language,” Alex admonished him. “How about showing us your certification of business tax?”
The old man knew he was fighting a losing battle.
As we walked away, we double-checked to make sure that this wasn’t a paid parking zone. We saw no signs to indicate that. But I couldn’t help but worry that our self-styled parking warden might take revenge on my car for his losing face.
“If he made me believe that he would keep an eye on my car for me, I probably would be happy to pay him,” I thought to myself.
I was taught growing up in Shanghai never to trust strangers on the street. Still, I hope I haven’t becoming an unremitting cynic.
“It is just the whole situation we find ourselves in that brings out the worst in us,” I keep telling myself.
In such a big, crowded city where the battles for limited resources are part of everyday life, one has little choice but to defend one’s ground. The parking nightmare is just part of this aggressive mode of self-preservation.
One day I woke up to find a pop-up notification of a news story on my phone. It was about a new app that enables people to share parking spots.
“This might be the answer,” I thought, telling myself that a little kindness and cooperation in the urban jungle would be a good thing.
Now, whenever Alex comes to pick me up for one of our motoring excursions, I give him my ad hoc parking place in the neighborhood.
It saves him money on parking fees and also guarantees that my hard-fought and much-loved spot won’t be snitched in my absence.
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