The mian baozi can carry up to ten passengers. I've wondered about that as I was fairly sure the 6 and the character for ren (people) on the outside of the van meant six passengers.

Well... Monday I was headed home from FuLi in a mian baozi carrying nine passengers. Suddenly the driver crossed the left lane of traffic and stopped on the left shoulder of the road. I could see roadwork in the right lane but no other stopped traffic. The driver was on his cell phone, but the van was idling, so I didn't think he was dealing with a breakdown. And why were we parked over on the left shoulder?

The girls next to me, we were seated on the very back bench seat, started talking. One mentioned liu (six) pointing to the van seats and pointing to the first six of us to patronize this bus.

Then I knew.

Within minutes three of the passengers stepped out to the road. The driver took the 1 by 6 board seat and shoved it along the inside wall toward me in the back. He removed the brackets that support the board seat and placed them under his seat.

We closed up the van, crossed over to the right lane of traffic, passed the three former passengers walking along the road and continued on with six passengers inside. Soon we drove by some uniformed official-looking men standing beside the road watching the traffic. Just beyond their view, the driver pulled over and stopped again.

We waited a few minutes until two of the ejected passenges walked up, the third one was no longer with them. The driver put the brackets and the board seat back in place and we continued on to Yangshuo with eight passengers.

We had passed inspection.