Lost on 9th Street
It had been a long week and all I really wanted was a night out. I had officially finished my first week of work. It was mostly spent understanding the school and getting used to their school system, but I wouldn’t start teaching classes until next week. Still, I was tired from sitting at a desk all day and wanted to do something fun. My coworkers and people on reddit have all recommended I go to 9th Street for a fun night out. They all said 9th Street is known for having a bunch of foreign bars and clubs. Why not check it out? I asked my coworkers if they wanted to go too. A few of them said yes, but sadly ended up having to cancel last minute.
I’ve never really gone to bars or clubs alone. Because what am I going to do sitting in a bar alone? My coworkers told me that here in China, most people go to bars and just sit and talk. (Which can I just say is crazy!? The bars still play loud music, which makes it very hard to have a conversation.) On the off chance, you find a bar with a dance floor, it’s very small and there aren’t many people dancing. All this to say, I was really anxious to go to a bar alone, BUT my desire to have a night out was stronger than my anxiety. So I left on my own.
I decided to take the metro to save money and it seemed simple enough to navigate. It was about an hour on the metro going in one direction and then I needed to walk for 20 minutes. Simple. After being on the metro for about an hour, I began looking for my stop. The stop I needed to get off at was called Guanyinqiao. The metro had stopped at a station, and the digital display on the metro said “Approaching Guanyinqiao.”
This is the part where things started going wrong. The location on my phone said I was still at Huaxinjie, the previous stop. Which begged the question, is this the correct stop or is it the next one? The doors opened, I had about a minute to decide whether or not to get off here or keep going one more stop. My phone had helped me navigate this city so far, so I decided to trust it. I watched the doors close and the metro began moving again.
That’s when I remembered all the tiktoks I saw that showed how underground some of the metro stations actually were in Chongqing. Since I was used to the outskirts of the city, I hadn’t experienced this and completely forgot about it. Now, heading towards the center, it meant I was probably in one of the metro stations that were deep underground. Which meant that I probably wouldn’t have good service. My suspicions were confirmed when the digital display now said “Approaching Hongqihegou.”
The metro stopped at Hongqihegou and I stepped out and just followed the crowd of people, because my maps was obviously not working and I had no idea where to go. In my head though I was thinking, “Why the fuck would you use Approaching? We’ve arrived at that point! There is no more approaching! That’s just confusing, man!” Anyway, following the crowd of people was also a mistake. They all took me to the spot where I would transfer to the pink line instead of the exit. So I started looking for the exit on my own. After riding 5 escalators up, I finally exited the metro station.
I needed a moment to reassess where I was and how I was going to get to 9th street. So I took a break and bought some Pocky at a nearby convenience store and thought of my options. I had three options. The first was I could take the metro back one stop to where I was supposed to get off. You may be asking well why didn’t you do that right after you got off the metro? Well, dear reader, it’s because I was lost!! I didn’t see the metro going back the other way and it was basically like an underground labyrinth 😭, okay? I just wanted to get out of there, get some service, and figure out what to do next.
Anyway, my second option was to take a Didi, which is basically Uber but for China, directly to my destination. The problem is I haven’t actually used it on my own, yet. My last option was to just walk the rest of the way. If I hadn’t missed my stop, I was still gonna have to walk a bit. Getting off at the wrong stop just added 20 minutes. So I figured I’d walk. “Why not enjoy exploring this part of the city, while I’m here?” I thought to myself. I was just walking, eating my Pocky, and looking around. This part of the city was so much livelier than the part that I lived in. I liked the energy of it. There were cars driving by, honking every once in a while, and lights everywhere. It’s what I had imagined when I thought of living in the city. I had walked about 10 minutes, admiring the view, when I checked my maps to see how far away I was. Apparently, I had been walking in the wrong direction and I was now even farther away.
Sooo I gave up and ordered a Didi. It was very easy because the app was in English (thank the lord). It said it would be here in 2 minutes, so it was also very fast. I was finally beginning to relax again when I got a call. It was the Didi driver. I answered and said hello. My overconfident self thought I could stumble my way through a conversation. CLEARLY I was wrong. I had no idea wtf this mans was saying. I kept apologizing saying I don’t understand. That didn’t stop him though. He kept talking, saying things I didn’t understand until I finally understood a small phrase: “where are you?” I said “I’m at the bus station, where are you?” I looked at the app again and realized the pick up location was on the wrong side of the street.
Welp I was screwed. I had no idea how to explain the situation to him in Chinese. My mind was racing on what to do. I considered asking someone on the street for help and hope they spoke English? Cancel the ride and try again? I quickly decided to text him pictures of what was around me, hoping he could figure the rest out. Then he just hung up. I had no idea what to do at this point. I figured I’d wait a few minutes, because I thought I heard him say he was coming right before he hung up. I was about to cancel the ride and try again when he sent me a text saying he was here. I looked around and found the car with the matching license plate.
“Hallelujah!” I got in and verified it was the correct car. Then I breathed a sigh of relief and he started driving. During the ride, all I could think about was how exciting that was. Getting lost and having to figure it all by myself was thrilling. It was a great feeling; a sense of accomplishment. A feeling that I could do anything by myself. This experience and everything leading up to it, moving to China, living on my own, it just confirmed what I already knew. That I am strong and independent and I am the kind of person who is going to go after what they want.
Sadly, that feeling of accomplishment was the best part of the night. I spent the rest of the night bar hopping. Looking for a bar or club where I could dance and have fun, maybe even meet some foreigners that spoke English. All of the bars I went to, though, there was no dance floor. Everybody was sitting or standing around and talking, just like my coworkers warned me. Plus, I didn’t even see any foreigners! Eventually, I gave up and got a Didi home. But, please let the takeaway from this story be the feeling of accomplishment I felt on my way to 9th street.
*Quick note: After riding the metro again, I realized that when it stops at a station, it DOES say Approaching ____. However, it’s only for a second, while the doors open. After the doors open……it does actually say Arrived _____. So haha I guess that all could have been avoided if I only looked again 😅 whoops.
