Peace, peace. But for whom?

When I was living in China, taxis were a convenient and cheap mode of transportation. One time, our taxi driver got into a small fender bender. The cabbie of the offended party got out of his car and began walking towards us shouting angry retorts, garbled in the thick Tianjin accent I was yet getting used to, laced with a few profanities. In a few strides he came to reach past the rolled down window of our driver and landed a punch. An all-out fist fight was brewing while in the backseat my toddler blew spit bubbles at me.

When I tell my China stories, they come out sounding outlandish without me embellishing with details. The reality is, it was quite a part of our ordinary lives to witness fist fights in China. Taxi drivers wore their road rage on the outside, shoving when necessary, hitting when riled up.

It happened all the time.