Stand­ing at the gate, peer­ing out over a sea of dri­vers jostling one anoth­er like sharks in chummed water, I am at a loss. Leav­ing Chi­na was as impromp­tu a deci­sion as com­ing here in the first place. The dif­fer­ence is one month lat­er, I am now with­out a guide, attempt­ing the return jour­ney alone. On this trip, my dri­ver from the train sta­tion to the air­port select­ed me—as an arm reach­es out between packed bod­ies and grabs my suitcase.

Quick­ly press­ing against the crowd, so as not to lose sight of my belong­ings, I fol­low the dri­ver at a safe distance—passing the cabs lined up at the curb, hop­ing each one is his, but as we leave the cabs behind us and turn the cor­ner, then down a soli­tary street, on and on, I fear I’ve made a huge mis­take I won’t come back from. At this point, retrac­ing my steps is not an option, even if I aban­don my things. So I con­tin­ue after him. My wheels echo against an admon­ish­ment against the pave­ment. “You…know…better,” they say in time with his steps.

Even­tu­al­ly, he leads me to a park­ing lot. Lots of cars. No peo­ple. My con­fi­dence, though shak­en, rebounds.

Until he points to a wood­en box approx­i­mate­ly the size of a phone booth. By ges­ture alone, I know what he wants. I walk past a burly guard into the win­dow­less box, which is quick­ly shut and locked. Now that it’s too late, the voice inside of me protests. As the long min­utes pass, I take stock of my resources. I have no phone and no one knows where I am. I calm­ly, and eeri­ly, begin to refer to myself as “The Girl in the Box,” like I’m a nar­ra­tor for one of those nature programs.

I review all my life deci­sions that led me to this guard­ed cage. 

I think about my fam­i­ly who’ll watch for me at the air­port, nev­er know­ing why I wasn’t on the plane. My fledg­ling escape plan seems weak at best: push through the men as they open the door—and run away. Yet, once the door opens, I just stand there in fear, res­ig­na­tion, and  maybe a lit­tle hope­ful­ness, I’m not sure. Then exhaltation—seeing this man load my suit­case into his run­ning car now stopped in front of my box. 

My mind’s eye envi­sions my fam­i­ly stand­ing near the lug­gage carousel cry­ing and smil­ing, as I bound through the gate towards them. I assure myself I have earned my future back, my “sil­ly” fears quick­ly for­got­ten as we dri­ve to the airport. 

 Halfway to the air­port, on a busy mul­ti­level high­way, the dri­ver hands me a lam­i­nat­ed sheet with his com­pa­ny name and a price list. I’d care­ful­ly account­ed for return costs based on my jour­ney here, but his rates were so far above my wildest imag­in­ings, I felt his pris­on­er once again. 

To put it into per­spec­tive, he want­ed to charge the equiv­a­lent of $500 for a $20 ride. Count­ing my cash, I did not have near­ly enough to pay for this ride. And I couldn’t express it since we couldn’t com­mu­ni­cate with one anoth­er. So, I shook my head vehe­ment­ly “no,” showed him my mon­ey, and point­ed in jerk­ing move­ments towards the side of the high­way, to express he’d have to let me out onto this sys­tem of over­pass­es. Some­how, I was more afraid of end­ing up in a black jail than dying on these mul­ti-lev­el bridges.

We reached an agree­ment that I’d give him most, but not all of my mon­ey. A few min­utes lat­er he indi­cates he want­ed the mon­ey right then, by point­ing to him emp­ty gas gauge. Eyes wide, I shake my head “no” and say air­port. Self-preser­va­tion has final­ly kicked in. Sev­er­al more times dur­ing the trip he requests pay­ment, but I wait until my suit­case is back in my pos­ses­sion before fork­ing over most of my mon­ey. The girl in the box enters the air­port poorer—but far wiser.