Shanghaied On the Way to Shanghai

Heiner - Who learnt what is meant to be Shanghaied 2-26-2008

Typical of many ports that we visit, the commercial terminal for Shanghai,Luojing harbor, is a distance from the city. We were advised that we were approximately 20 miles away from the city center, and that transportation might be difficult to find.
We didn't realize that the miles were "Irish Miles", where "a mile or so down the road" is Irish lingo for a distance measuring anywhere from 1 to 10miles. As for getting there, we had several candidates willing to arrange transportation for us. The first person who approached us appeared to speak English, always a plus, and seemed nice. He offered to get us a taxi that would take us to the city for a total of $30.
The taxi left a little to be desired, especially the clutch. The taxi driver spoke and understood little English. Mal had carefully written the address and telephone number of our hotel on a piece of paper which he handed to our driver. He immediately became a little distressed and called his dispatcher. At the same time he kept telling us, "No go Shanghai."After a very animated conversation in Chinese, he handed the phone to Mal.It appeared that the original agent's command of the English wasn't so good afterall. He thought that we wanted to go to Jaiding, a large town much closer to the port. The dispatcher, who spoke excellent English, told Malthat a trip to Shanghai would cost US$70. After much negotiation the price was reduced to $60.
Problem solved, or so we thought until Heiner's GPS showed that we were actually heading away from Shanghai. Any attempt to learn why this should be was answered with, "No go Shanghai". Mal assured Heiner and me that the dispatcher knew that we wanted to go to downtown Shanghai and there was nothing we could do but have faith.
An analogy might be arriving at JFK and asking to be driven to Greenwich Village only to have the taxi head toward the Riverdale section of the Bronx. I muttered to myself, "Shanghaied, by golly, in Shanghai."
Eventually we arrived literally at the feet of the dispatcher where we changed to another car and driver. Our new driver, needless to say, took us directly to our Hotel.
The explanation lies in method that the City of Shanghai uses to cut down traffic congestion in the city. There is a finite number of license plates issued, and these coveted plates are allocated by lottery. Our driver's "Nogo Shanghai" was an effort to tell us, "I don't have a license plate that allows me to drive in Shanghai."