When you’re driving and you’ve lost your way, what do you do?

A. Keep driving until you see something familiar.
B. Consult the Thomas Guide.
C. Pull into a gas station and ask for directions.
D. Stop and ask a pedestrian for directions.
E. None of the above.

I suppose that living in California, and especially in Los Angeles where we are a car culture, asking for directions is pretty much a normal activity.

Let’s change the venue for a moment and ask the same question if you’re in a foreign city like São Paulo. Here are the responses to the multiple choice question above if you are lost in Brazil.

A. Keep driving until you see something familiar.

Not an option if you aren’t familiar with the area. Driving in a foreign city or country has its own particular challenges, not the least of which is the fact that you may not know what it is you’re looking for.

In São Paulo, all the buildings look like every other building, adding much to feelings of confusion. And when you’re on the street level surrounded by identical thirty-story buildings, it’s hard to find a recognizable landmark. Compounding the situation are the streets which, instead of being laid out straight and squared off at right angles, twist and turn upon each other, and change names abruptly.

If you try to study a map, you’ll find that one of the principal streets, Avenida Paulista becomes Rua Vergeiro to the southeast. Then turning south, it becomes Rua Domingo de Morais, soon to become Ave. Jabaquara—all within a twelve-mile stretch. I actually drove that route and, believe me, it wasn’t easy!

There is also a very common inconsistency about whether the city has decided to put up street signs or not. Actually, I’m looking at it backwards; there is a consistency in their LACK of posting of street signs.

B. Consult the Thomas Guide.

Buzzzz. Wrong answer. All the maps of Sampa that I’ve ever looked at were either 20 years old or were plain not right. Sampa is a city of 17 million altogether in a sprawling urban space, constantly growing, shifting and changing.

Another problem is the name of the streets: Pirapitingui or Guiratinga, were both the names of streets where I was homestayed. And did I spell the names right or is there an A where there should be an I? Or a P instead of a T?

Now add the ubiquitous absent street sign problem and all the Auto Club, Mapquest maps, Thomas Guides, and GPS navigation systems will do you no good. Your problem begins with the question, where am I right at this moment? (There are no “You Are Here” marks on the map you’re looking at.) You look up at the corner lampposts to find the name of the intersection and alas, no street sign in either direction. Grrr.

C. Pull into a gas station and ask for directions.
D. Stop and ask a pedestrian for directions.

C and D both have the identical problem. One assumes, living in L.A., that because we are a car culture, people can automatically give directions. This turns out not to be the case even here. If you’ve ever had the experience of calling a restaurant to get directions and have the person on the other line not know how to explain it, you know what I mean.

In a foreign country however, the explanation is much more straightforward. People who don’t drive aren’t generally able to give good directions because they don’t have the perspective of life from behind a steering wheel. They also tend to walk, take a bus or travel along a prescribed route. A local example is if they take the bus from downtown L.A. to Monterey Park every day, they may not be able to help you get to Culver City. Does this make sense?

I learned this principle from my friend and his wife as we were lost in Argentina. I don’t think we stopped to ask anyone, but we just kept driving until we eventually got there.

So the correct answer in today’s multiple choice quiz on whether to stop for directions in a foreign country would be:

E. None of the above.

© 2009 John Katagi