This was how it always began: a glance in the rearview mirror. Then a double-take. The green “空车” sign snapped down, the meter running, the address given, a pause, and the taxi driver asked: “Are you mixed-blood?”

I started taking taxis in Shanghai alone since I was nine or ten, a feature of my childhood in a sprawling metropolis. Stale cigarette smells, the plastic partition, the starched white fabric covering the backseat: these were the comforting familiarities of a taxi ride, along with the inevitable banter with the drivers. Most often, they were middle-aged men and old-guard Shanghainese, the dialect infusing a susurration into their Mandarin. Perhaps because I was a child, alone, their questions were always direct:

“What country?”

“France.”

“Your dad is French?”

“No, my mother.”

This usually generated great surprise; raised eyebrows in the rearview mirror. “Your dad is Chinese?”

“Yes.”

“Woah, he must be good!”

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The word in Chinese was 厉害 – in this context, it could also mean sharp, great, capable. In sum, it was an implied feat that the usual gender pairing had been reversed. I’ve never heard a Chinese woman called “good” for marrying a white man–often, they were called much worse things, and given the cold shoulder as betrayers of their race– but the same logic did not seem to apply to Chinese men who’d wed white women. That, in the era’s conservative gender dynamics, connotated a certain victory. In the eyes of many taxi drivers, based on this nuptial fact alone, my dad was something else.

“How did they meet?”

“My mom came to teach English in China in the 1980s.”

“And you all live in Shanghai now?”

“No, they’re not together anymore. They’re divorced.”

This often elicited a disappointed grunt, then renewed interest: “Why did they get divorced?”

In hindsight, it was amusing how personal and up-in-my-business these conversations were. They probably wouldn’t have occurred had either of my parents been in the car. As a kid, I didn’t see why I shouldn’t be forthcoming. As we sped down the under-river tunnels or over the suspended bridges criss-crossing the Huangpu, I spilled out the backstories, the gory details, the Freudian analysis. The driver would sometimes philosophize on the odds of success of an interracial marriage, cross-cultural differences, the determinants of whether I’d grow up to go overseas or remain here.

Evolving perceptions: the journey of mixed heritage in changing times

Over the years, these conversations with taxi drivers became markers of my sense of identity and belonging in China. Sometimes these conversations would start with the driver not noticing I’m part-foreign–I spoke the directions in Mandarin, my native language. They’d then comment something like: “I did think you looked a little foreign.” When I was a child, the taxi drivers agreed I looked mostly Chinese, but there was a little something different. Although the conversations were inevitably about what France was like, if I went there often, how I felt about China, if I felt more French or Chinese, they always made me feel included rather than excluded. Identity was a matter of both/and, not either/or.

But as I grew older, my features changed ever so slightly, towards the more discernibly caucasian (of course, in France, people still yelled “nihao” at me on the streets). After I left for school in the US at 16 and returned to Shanghai for visits, dressed in outfits purchased in American malls, the drivers talked to me less. Sometimes they asked what country I was from. “I’m half-Chinese!” I’d say, almost self-justifying, or, “my dad is Chinese!” It now felt like I was squarely an outsider, trying to stake a claim on any Chinese heritage. Sometimes the drivers would utter the requisite nicety said to a foreigner speaking Mandarin: “Your Chinese is so good.” This was a dagger to my heart. “It’s my mother tongue,” I’d reply, weakly, often to no response.

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Since smartphones and ride-share apps arrived in China, the taxi industry has been turned upside down by the Chinese equivalents of Uber: companies called Didi and Shenzhou. It became nearly impossible to hail a taxi on the street the old-fashioned way. So I resorted to the apps, always picked up by younger men in sleek cars and headsets, and these men, taking one look at my face, were less talkative than ever. I didn’t need to say my destination, since the transaction had already occurred digitally.

There were still some of the old-guard Shanghainese drivers around, but many were embittered: to keep in business, taxi drivers of past generations were forced to sign onto apps like Didi, the robotic female voice on their phone spitting out, at breakneck speed, a list of fares they could take. These men were older now, irate, and the chipmunk recitation of Didi requests was the only noise that filled the car. They no longer asked me if I was mixed, or which of my parents was Chinese, or what country I liked best. I wanted to lean in and knock on the plastic partition, to reenact those familiar conversations. But now I was just a foreigner in the rearview mirror, and sometimes when our eyes met I saw a flash of a question, to which I answered silently: yes, I am.

About the author

Aube Rey Lescure is a French-Chinese-American writer who grew up between Shanghai, northern China and the south of France. After receiving her BA from Yale University, she worked in foreign policy and has co-authored and translated two books on Chinese politics and economics. She was an Ivan Gold Fellow, a Pauline Scheer Fellow, and an artist-in-residence at the Studios of Key West and Willapa Bay AiR. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in Guernica, The Best American Essays 2022, The Florida Review online, and more. She is the deputy editor at Off Assignment. River East, River West by Aube Rey Lescure (Duckworth Books, £16.99) will be published on January 25th and is available from all major book retailers.

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