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Q: Is there any better ways to direct local taxi drivers to my destination?
I understand that most of local taxi drivers do not speak English, and I always have difficulties communicate with them on my destination. May I know what other better ways or solutions to direct them?
Get your destination written in Chinese, and show it to the driver.
icnif77:
You can ask for the destination 'text' in Chinese at any Bank in the city. Almost every Bank has at least one English speaking employee.
Ask a Chinese person to write it on a piece of paper before your journey begins or ask a Chinese person to send a SMS to your cellphone with the name in Chinese. If those two possibilities are not available, look it up on Google maps and print out in Chinese. If none of these options are available, take the subway.
Everytime I travel I would take a picture on my phone of the place that I am staying and places that i would often frequent and just show picture to taxi driver
Whenever I go anywhere alone, I have my wife write down the destination. If for some reason that fails I call her and hand my phone to the driver. So far I have not gotten lost.
I also will take picture of street-signs, subway station names, etc to be able to get back. When I stay in a hotel I will get a business card or something with the hotels name/address on when I check in
Phone someone who can speak to them in chinese that usually does the trick with me.
Use google map on your Android or iPhone, IF you have 3G. It always woks for me.
cooter:
This is a good suggestion. You can also find an app that doesn't require internet service for the map. I use CityMaps2Go. Their maps are pretty complete for larger Chinese cities, but get a little spotty out in the countryside. Works great in a pinch though, especially given the flaky nature of Chinese cellular service.
My good friend I can assure you that shouting is understood in any language. If they don't understand it's because you aren't shouting loudly enough. The Chinese understand this. Which is why people from different regions overcome the limitations of only being familiar with incompatible dialects by shouting loudly in what would otherwise be complete gibberish. So given that your native language and Chinese are very different you just need to get really close to the driver's ear and then scream those words out at the top of your lungs. He'll understand. I assure you.
Get it written down and take three different taxis, each time showing the address, One might get you there.
If you know the way, you can use some simple Chinese to direct the taxi driver. Also comes in handy even if you know the address, as obviously not all taxi drivers have encyclopedic knowledge of their city's addresses.
Left side - zuo bian (左边)
Ride side - you bian (右边)
Go straight - xiang qian (向前)
While the first 2 are technically left and right side, I've found it also works for "turn left" and "turn right". Hopefully you'll find a taxi driver who will make some allowances for less than stellar Chinese language skills 
It's not hard if you know your way around. You'll get cheated a few times but when you can recognize the route you'll be ok. Just learn some simple phrases to tell the driver;
Turn right: you zhuan
Turn left: zuo zhuan
straight: zhi zou
at the lights: zai hong lu deng
ahead (such as approaching an intersection): qian bian
So to ask the driver to turn left at the lights you would say "zai hong lu deng zuo zhuan".
Like some other people have commented you can make sure the places are written down but then you leave yourself being open to taken advantage, some drivers will assume you don't know the way or are new here and try and take you the long way around. For that reason be sure to say where you want to go in Chinese (especially if you are coming from the airport/train station or a hotel) otherwise they will start to rip you off immediately.
If you feel the driver is taking you the long way around you can ask him simply "ni qu na li?" (where are you going?)
But as I mentioned you must learn the way around your city, at least the regular routes you should take.
Hope I've helped!
I have installed a software app from app store, can directly enter the road name and it generates in Chinese and can show it to the driver. You may look for "dir shanghai".
