Driver, Weatherman, and Mom ... Rolled into One

We have mentioned many times how great Mr. Chen (our driver) is. He always goes the extra mile to help us out whenever we need it. One of his previously unknown qualities, however, is starting to really come out. He has an insanely accurate weather forecasting ability ... so good that he should be a meteorologist.

This time of year it is particularly cold in Shanghai, but on Wednesday and Thursday it was beautiful. The temperatures were in the low 70s and we had clear blue skies. So on Friday morning Scott checked outside and it was still fairly warm so he decided not to wear a coat to work. Mr. Chen spied him coming out to the car and immediately ran up to him and the following conversation ensued:

Mr. Chen: "Sir, jintian ni yao yifu" which means "Sir, today you will need a coat"
Scott: "Mei guan shi, wo hao de" which means "No problem, I will be OK"
Mr. Chen: "NO!" which means "No!"
Scott: "Wo hao de" which mean "I will be OK"
Mr. Chen: "NO! Jintian xia wu, hen leng ... xia yu hen da" which means "No, this afternoon it will be very cold and the rain will be heavy."

Mr. Chen told Scott to go back inside to get his coat. Following orders, Scott reluctantly went inside to get his coat. Around lunchtime Scott went outside without his coat and snickered to himself ... "its warmer now than this morning." So when leaving the office he decided to carry his coat to specifically prove that Mr. Chen had been quite inaccurate in his weather forecast. However, upon exiting the revolving door Scott was blasted with rush of frigid air that forced him to drop his computer bag to the ground and throw on his coat.

As he got in the car Mr. Chen turned back to him and said, "Hen leng" which means "It's cold." Disgusted Scott thought to himself, "fine so he was right about the temperature, but it's completely dry outside." At that minute as he placed the ear buds for his I Pod into his ears he looked up to see 5 huge rain drops simultaneously pelt the windshield. Without hesitation, Mr. Chen giggled and turned back to Scott to acknowledge his own brilliance ... "xia yu" (rain) he proclaimed.