If Beijing taxi drivers happen to lose their jobs, they may do very well in another profession: as robbers. However, if robbers find themselves unemployed some day, they may find themselves unfit for the job of Beijing taxi drivers. The reason is, although robbers are as heartless, ferocious and money craving as Beijing taxi drivers, the former are not as brazen as the latter. The former at least need masks or stockings and come out at night but the latter do not need anything and rob you in broad daylight.

I have been to Beijing three times. Six out of the eight drivers I met overcharged me and I know that any telephone complaint to local authorities will not be effective. Beiji

The most outrageous incident was on November 21, when my friends and I were hurrying to catch a flight. A Beijing taxi driver, who had certainly seen through us, refused to take us in unless we agreed to pay him 80 yuan (US$9.60) instead of 60 yuan which would normally appear on the meter for the distance between our hotel and the airport. Although we clearly knew that he was overcharging us, we agreed for fear of missing the flight.

His nagging kept us company through the journey, making us feel that we should thank him for taking us to the airport and should further give him some extra compensation for his loss of "marginal cost" and for the favour he had done us.

The most interesting topic the driver initiated during the journey was the business practice in the taxi industry in Shanghai. Here in Shanghai, the taxi industry has an unwritten rule that passengers can refuse to pay if the driver makes material mistakes about roads, or has obviously taken the passenger round and round.

Even when the taxi, which should have installed an electronic device to allow the use of a transportation card, has one that has malfunctioned, the passengers can refuse to pay. But such business practice is certainly not welcome with Beijing taxi drivers. Our driver said to us: "It is said that you Shanghainese have a habit of refusing to pay when you arrive at your destination. Don't you think that is terrible and absurd? Everybody pays for his bread. And how can one refuse to pay after he takes the taxi? You Shanghainese are really crazy! Next time if you Shanghainese come to Beijing, don't bother to buy a plane or a train ticket, just hail a taxi, come all the way to Beijing and refuse to pay in the end!"

In Shanghai, passengers are certainly not as outrageous as he imagined. They just benefit from better taxi service and more effective protection. A typical Shanghainese, even if he or she does not as yet have the experience of refusing to pay the taxi driver, knows and agrees with such a concept. On the contrary, the concept is alien to taxi drivers in Beijing, where the taxi service fails to benefit from adequate competition or stringent administration.

Luckily things are much better here in Shanghai (a tip when hailing a taxi in Shanghai: blue cabs and yellow cabs are among the best local choices as they are the two largest and most competitive service providers in the city).

Back to my story. When we got to the airport, the price on the meter was only 47 yuan (US$5.70). We gave him 90 yuan (US$11) - 80 yuan as we had promised and another 10 for "high-speed" fees which the driver had not warned us about in advance but which he alleged to be "customary business practice". For sure, we could not refuse to pay in a city other than Shanghai.

We were greatly relieved and overjoyed when our flight landed in Shanghai and we got into a Shanghai cab. We had learned an important lesson: often in life we fail to appreciate the advantages of the city we are living in just because we have not lived outside it for some time.

Close

Today's Top News		Top Lifestyle News
+Taiwan OKs watered-down referendum bill ( 2003-11-27) +US duties on Chinese imports criticized ( 2003-11-27) +Beijing in the dark about US case on spy ( 2003-11-28) +Chinese sue Japan, firm over slave labour ( 2003-11-28) +Trial opens for nation's biggest `ice' case ( 2003-11-27)		+The art of celebrity weirdness ( 2003-11-28) +Norwegian hacker cracks iTunes code ( 2003-11-28) +Gov't-approved condom ads aired for first time ( 2003-11-28) +Over 60 percent of China's HIV carriers infected through drug use: report ( 2003-11-28) +Location of first emperor's tomb pinpointed ( 2003-11-28)