The second day in Nanjing was eye-opening. My mom decided to try to order a cab from her phone and when we got into the cab, the driver started scolding us. It was embarassing!

The issue was the driver was worried about not finding us, thus costing her the time and money of losing a customer. So she texted my mom a couple of times to confirm the location since the pickup location is based on a GPS ping, which can be anywhere within a 5 to 30 feet radius. However, because my mom’s number is a foreign number, she couldn’t receive any of the messages. The driver went on and on about the trouble we had caused while my mom kept apologizing and thanked her for the advise. That was the first of two times we got scolded by a cab driver on this trip.

“What are we going to do when we get to Zhongshan?” I asked later when we were alone, “when your cousins are no longer with us?” My mom didn’t answer but this incident made me feel uneasy about hailing another cab.

We spent much of that morning at the Nanjing Museum, marveling at the artifacts from different eras in the Jiangsu region. It wasn’t a particularly large museum but if you want to look at everything and study its intricate details, it’ll take you all day. The thing I didn’t like about the museum was that not all the exhibits were translated to English. There were some exhibits that were either translated with semi-comprehensible English or no translation at all. My favorite exhibit was the replica of Nanjing during the early 20th century (days of the Republic of China).

After a quick lunch, we ascended several sets of stairs to the ancient city wall. I love places like this because it allows me to see the city from a higher vantage point and this creates some interesting, unique photos. Though there were anything special about the city wall (other than that it’s old), we lingered and I was glad my mom had her cousins to keep her company while I took photos.

That night, however, when we visited Confucius’s Temple, I had somewhat of a panic attack. There were so many people that I found myself panicking as my mind kept playing different images of me getting trampled, either by people or by electric scooters. People were pushing and shoving and treating me like I was invisible. I got so frustrated and threw a tantrum because not only I felt like no one cared about how I was feeling but I felt helpless as my chest pounded and hands shook.

My mom doesn’t tolerate tantrum from anyone but herself. So she told me, “either you adapt to this environment or you go home.”

That’s it? I thought. She’s giving me an ultimatum? She’s not going to help me get over my episode? She’s not going to help me calm down?

Angry and frustrated, I stormed away from her and her cousins and sped walked toward the nearest subway station toward the hotel.