Highways, Hunger, Home (Chapters 6-7)

February 17, 2025:

Ms. Li (Li Mei) driving me toward Huizhou

The Pandemic

Li Mei’s world cracked wide open when COVID-19 arrived. “I remember, in 2020, they locked down parts of Shenzhen. I had just dropped off someone at a hospital,” she said. “Then everything stopped. No rides. No people. Nothing. I almost got quarantined for driving that patient. Thank god she was not diagnosed with COVID.”

She was fortunate to have bought her car. “The company didn’t suspend rent on its cars. Others still had to pay, even if there were no passengers. Some had to borrow just to keep the car and all the related licenses and certificates.”

The months that followed were blurrier still. “There were checkpoints. You had to scan codes, show tests. Monthly nucleic acid COVID test turned weekly, then daily. We all stayed in long lines waiting for volunteers covered head to toe in white isolation suits to stick a cotton bud into your throat, so they can send your sample to the testing center. Drivers had to record their body temperatures every morning before work. I kept the cab windows open all the time. People were scared to sit in a car still. Some wore two masks.”

When the worst passed, things didn’t return to normal. “The city came back, but slowly. And not the same. More people working from home, or being fired altogether. More commuters taking subways. Fewer tourists. Fewer businesspeople.” Even now, her earnings haven’t bounced back.

Still Moving

The night I rode with Li Mei, the moon hung low and yellow. The clouds cleared as we moved beyond Shenzhen’s perimeters into Park Lane Harbor. Her voice had grown softer, slower. The rhythm of her stories, like the wheels under us, was steady.

Before she dropped me off, I asked what she would do if she won the lottery. She laughed. “Buy an apartment in my name. Not rented.” Then she paused, laughed. “Maybe sleep in. Just one day. No alarm. No App notifications. I’ll visit my hometown, my mother.”

And after that? “Maybe go see the sea. Really see it. Not just drive past it on a job, or stand in front of it, not knowing what to do. Back in the 2010s, when I was still new to Shenzhen, I went to the Shenzhen Bay Park a few times. I saw the shoreline, the palm trees, the runway, the people jogging and biking and laughing. I had all sorts of fantasies for that park. Then I went there with some sort of hope, anxiety, anticipation. I left feeling a lot more empty than how I came. My body was at the park, but I couldn’t enjoy it the same way others are. I don’t know how. I see established urbanites flying kites, taking photos of migratory seabirds, throwing beach balls with their children. But I’m not one of them—I was separated from them in the same way I was isolated inside my cab, getting a peek into their life through its window.” At that moment, Li fulfilled a dream, but did she ever dream?

We stopped at a red light. Silence filled the cab. “But I won’t win the lottery,” she said.