Flightster

Hastily Drawn Sketches of Whatever

• by Colin Wright
• on September 7th, 2010
• 3 Comments

Here’s something I don’t like about myself: I don’t speak every language in the world.

It sounds like a silly complaint, but just imagine how easy life would be if you could bounce from French to Balinese anytime the situation called for it!

And I’m not even close to this goal. The only language I can really convey my full thoughts in is English, with Spanish coming in as a distant second; I can usually get across what I’m trying to say, but definitely not elegantly, precisely or totally accurately.

This is part of why I started traveling, and being on the road gives me reminders every day of why it’s an important goal.

Today, for example, I spent a good deal of time trying to tell taxi drivers where I wanted to go and then convince them of why they should take me there.

It started early in the morning: I had to be up so that I could make it to the TEDx Krungthep event on time. The event was a bit out of town, and after getting in 3 different cabs and showing the address to 3 different drivers I finally whipped out my computer and pulled up a map of where I was trying to go.

This map didn’t help, though, as apparently the drivers were 1. fed up with all the gesticulating, 2. convinced that I was making the place up, or 3. not willing to go so far out of their way for a few hundred Baht.

I asked the fourth cabby to take me to the airport. The thought process here was that the airport was closer to where I was trying to go, and though it was still a good deal away from the event, and really just the third point in a confusing triangle (along with where I currently was and where I was trying to be), there are cabby-handlers at the airport who can sometimes understand some English and tell the drivers where to go.

Unfortunately, this was not the case when I arrived. After being dropped off and meandering downstairs to the ‘arrivals’ area, I spent 15 minutes showing various maps (I love that the airport has free WiFi!) and addresses to the woman, but the driver was none the wiser when we got in the car. He spent the first 20 minutes driving in circles, having a physically-active and verbally-elaborate discussion with someone on his mobile phone…I’m pretty sure he was trying to figure out where to go, though he may have been arguing with his wife or girlfriend (or perhaps he was asking his wife or girlfriend where to take me?).

Eventually, way made our way to the correct part of town and I recognized some characters on a sign that were on the informational packet for the event. At long last we had arrived, but the taxi-fun for the day was not over, because I still had to make my way home.

Now, being able to draw is one of those skills that is seldom appreciated unless you are 1. playing Pictionary or 2. dating someone who wants to be drawn, Titanic-style. In both cases you feel like a royal badass, but neither compares to the joy you get from communicating across languages barriers with hastily-drawn sketches of whatever.

After the event I took a brief side-trip with a friend to a particularly touristy part of town, and after some cheap pad thai, some chuckling at the prominence of dreadlocks among backpackers and a bit of businessy conversation, I hailed a cab and told him I wanted to go to Victory Monument (which I live very close to).

Up until this point had taken for granted that the cabbies in most countries will recognize even foreign versions of their local landmarks. Whether you say Casa Rosada or ‘Pink House,’ the taxi drivers in Buenos Aires will get you where you need to go. Their livelihoods depend on it. This cabby, however, apparently didn’t read the handbook.

I said it once, then again, then once more, changing my accent so that it fit more closely with how Thais pronounce things. No dice.

I described the shape of it with my hands, though it probably looked to him like I was describing a sexual act or a tent (the Victory Monument is an obelisk…a tall tower with a pyramid top, like the Washington Monument).

Giving in the desperation, I pulled out my Moleskine and pen and started drawing. I VERY quickly sketched out a rough obelisk, making a point to show with little cars and stick figures that highways surrounded it and that there is a walkway overhead for people to walk on.

He looked at this a moment and then his face lit up and he said “Anusawari Chai Samoraphum,” to which I replied “Huh?”

He seemed very certain of himself, though, and at this point I figured “what’s the worst that could happen? There’s no way I’ll even up even further away from home.” And thankfully, this time I was right.

So if you’re traveling (or planning on doing so), it may be of benefit to play Pictionary from time to time to really hone those sketching skills; it may be the only thing that will get you home.

That or, you know, convince more people to let you draw them naked. It probably won’t be as helpful with cabbies, but then, if you’re practicing like this you probably won’t want to leave anyway.

Colin Wright

Colin Wright is a minimalist, branding expert and serial entrepreneur. While running his blog Exile Lifestyle ,his branding studio Colin Is My Name and his e-publishing business ebookling. Colin travels the world (moving to a new country every 4 months), meeting up with amazing people, giving talks (to audiences ranging from tech industry professionals to college students to Catholic school girls) and hunting down new and interesting experiences.