I don’t know if there have been stricter rules when it comes to taxi drivers, but if there were, I wonder under what reasons do they give punishment to make taxi drivers less likely to trick passengers into paying more than they should. For many who’ve lived in Beijing, especially when coming from the airport for the first time, you probably had the experience of being taken on a 400rmb joyride around Beijing. Personally I never really had a bad taxi experience in Beijing. Maybe because I look Chinese? But I did have a lot of bad taxi experiences in Xiamen. Maybe because it was a small city? You could pay 1rmb for a bus to get anywhere in the city. So as a taxi driver, unless your passenger forgot something back at home and needs to drive back and forth, you can’t really make too much; at least not as much as you can in big city Beijing. I’ve been here for almost five years and there are still only a certain percent of places I know in this city. But still, I did notice, even with my friends, that there have been less reports in getting scammed when riding a taxi. Maybe they’re getting paid more? Punishment and penalties? Also, there’s this competition with “hei-ches” (literally translated, “black-cars”). They are self-made taxis doing illegal business in the streets of Beijing, meaning they’re not licensed to take money from passengers. They should be able to offer you a cheaper price but they will try to trick you into paying just as much or even more if you don’t know what you should really be paying. Remember, they don’t work for any company, they get to keep all the money they make in a day, and they drive small, crappy-looking cars, so they better be offering to drive you for less money.
Back to Beijing taxi drivers, and the real reason I thought about them suddenly. I heard that most of them can speak English now! Is this true? I never heard one English “peep” come out from the mouth of any Beijing taxi drivers before; just shy maybe? It would be sort of amusing to hear though, with their Beijing “-err” accent. Apparently some, not sure if they all do, have English learning tapes with them in the car to learn English. What for? Why of course, in preparation for the 2008 Olympics! Hehe… Will make a point and ask some taxi drivers about this, and maybe I’ll even pretend not to know any Chinese and really test to see if they speak a word of English. Should make for an educational ride.
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4 comments:
Hi there,
Touch wood I've never been scammed by a Beijing taxi driver and I'm very clearly not Chinese. I was a little surprised by this but they seem pretty honest on the whole even if half the time they don't really know where they're going.
I find that in taxis I get a good chance to practice my Chinese because they almost never speak a word of English. I ask them if they can speak a little. They usually think for a moment and then say no, not a word. I'm guessing they have probably learnt a few words but are afraid to try. There's going to have to be some serious effort if they're all to learn by next year. Still, China seems to have a habit of pulling off impressive feats so I haven't written them off yet.
Take care,
J
Hey J~
Really, never?! Wow! Don't tell me you've never lost a bike either :) I have friends who've lost like 6 bikes, even crappy ones that hardly run and doesn't have brakes.
Yah, I agree though, the taxis in Beijing are a lot more honest (I'm comparing to the ones in smaller cities, like in Xiamen, where going from one place to another in most cases almost always adds up to 10rmb).
"China seems to have a habit of pulling off impressive feats.." True that :) Just watch the buildings appear and disappear and vise-versa, whao~
tc~
I have to confess that I've never lost a bike in Beijing. What's more of an embarrassing confession is that I've never owned a bike in Beijing. I live five minutes walk from where I work and though I love to cycle I'm a dangerous cyclist at the best of times. The likelihood of me ending up under a truck is pretty high.
J
Haha... I hated riding a bicycle but was forced to while in school. Everyday, I had near-crash-experiences with other bikers, trees, and dividers. Finally, one morning I was late for class, I crashed into another girl riding a scooter. My bike was fine, but her scooter was amputated and had to get a little fixer-upper, which I paid for of course.
:) good day J~
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