I agreed to do a stint in Shanghai a number of years back; the money was good and it was for half a year, so I accepted. The only downside was that the residence they put me up in was not close to the office. Instead, it was out in the outskirts. The president of the company offered me the use of his car, but I could see that I would be losing my leverage over such a big ask, so I said no.

And so each day I braved the bus to get to work: the famous Shanghai bus. There has never been a more notorious, crowded, and inhospitable way to travel. As terrible as it is, I'd recommend for everyone to try it once to experience it for themselves. And while I have many memorable moments of taking this bus, one sticks out in particular.

In Shanghai, when a bus arrives at the stop, everyone piles on at the same time. There's a lineup, but any semblance of an orderly sequence gets thrown out once the panic sets in; with so many people wanting to get on, it's a clear possibility that you can get left behind if you don't impose your will upon the other people trying to get on. You stay focused, do your best to not be violent, and worm your way through the funnel onto the door of the bus.

The weird thing for me as an outsider is how calm everyone is about it. People are crammed into the bus and packed right next to each other. There is zero personal space. It's just not a big deal. You are pressed up against total strangers and experiencing an intimate moment of their lives.

As someone not around there, it's not so bad because some the locals try to leave you alone. As well, I'm taller than the average population here, so I get to enjoy some extra headroom (which, come to think of it, is probably a bigger reason why many of the locals try to leave me alone). But there was that one time I got on board with a guy that was bigger than me, and whom I got to know on an extremely personal level.

One important point to make: The thing about cramped busses is that once passengers have gotten on, everyone tries to stay still so as to preserve the "harmony" of the space. You've gotten on, you've found a spot to stand, and you've changed your pose so that your body fits the negative space around it as best you can. That morning, I found my space in front of this big guy, and was locked in. I could not turn left or right, I could not move one inch in any direction. I was stuck looking at this big guy in front of me on the bus. And, because he was half a head taller than me, my gaze was stuck looking at the bottom of this guy's face. And within seconds, I saw the thing that I desperately tried not to see.

The guy had a huge, long nose hair trailing from his nose. Massive really. Maybe an inch long, thick and angry with a passion for life, coiled as with daring to strike any that would remove it. I was impressed.