Taxi, taxi!! - A foreigner's survival guide to China

In Beijing, taxis and their drivers tend to pop up in conversation just about as often as the weather, at least if the interlocutors happen to be foreigners. Beijing's streets are awash with hundreds of thousands of cabs and their fares are so low that you often end up taking one even if you didn't necessarily have to. Another reason for their popularity is that they can be found at every corner of the city, except when it's raining, of course. ”I had a really crazy driver this morning” or ”What a great driver I had, he even spoke a few words of English,” are often the first words uttered to colleagues upon arrival at the office. And naturally, there are as many drivers as there are cabs, which is why many cab rides stick indelibly in your mind, in good and in bad.

First of all, I have to say that Beijing taxi drivers are generally a very honest bunch of people. The meters start ticking almost automatically and customers who happen to doze off on the backseat for one reason or another are safely taken to their destination. One particularly honest cabbie went through a lot of trouble to return a cell phone my husband had left in his car and wouldn't even accept money as a reward. And I do happen to know that this case was not just a one off! Unfortunately, there is one thing that seems to be common to all Beijing cabbies – an overpoweringly aromatic blend of garlic and BO with a hint of morning after smell. Drivers are also no longer supposed to smoke in their vehicles, but this interdiction is most often interpreted in the form “no smoking in the presence of customers.” When you start to find this smell homey, you know you've been in Beijing for too long!

Lost in Beijing

Despite numerous campaigns to teach taxi drivers to speak English, Beijing cabbies are still notorious for their lack of foreign language skills. When I was in China, on many occasions I saw frustrated foreigners and Chinese taxi drivers engaged in shouting battles in their own respective languages – thus I've come to the conclusion that it is a universal notion that shouting will make your foreign interlocutor understand the language you speak better. But don't even think that giving instructions in English would even get you to the Forbidden City. That is why it pays to always carry along an assortment of notes and memos with Chinese addresses on them for every occasion. But even if you had the correct addresses with you that might not be enough, because Beijing is territory that even natives have trouble navigating in. Sometimes the drivers err from their own territory to the wrong side of the city, where even the most famous landmarks will not help them navigate. Once my taxi driver couldn't even find Beijing's biggest park, the Chaoyang. In addition, Beijing's size makes it easy for cabbies to take an unsuspecting tourist on a joyride around the city, in other words, take the “scenic route” to the destination.

The driver from hell

Even cab drivers sometimes have trouble finding an address in Beijing. (Image: Radio86)I could tell you many stories about crazy, friendly, rude and weird cab drivers, but two cases stand out clearly above the rest. The first one I'm going to call the driver from hell. The following events took place in Beijing in a time when the city was still awash with small, red taxi cars called Xialis. One day, on my first trip to China I took one of these xialis from my home to work. Very soon it became apparent that I was in fact riding with the devil. The diabolic driver pushed the pedal to the metal and did not let any possible traffic jams hamper his wayfare, as he sped across pedestrian walkways, curbs and traffic islands. People jumped to the side in horror as they saw the cab dash towards them and I held on to the the bench for dear life. I yelled at the driver, asking him to slow down because I didn't have a death wish, to which he sarcastically replied “And does her highness know how to drive a car?” Before I got the chance to reply, the driver exclaimed ”Well, I do!” and laughed and accelerated again. Needless to say, I was happy to get to my destination unscathed, but a couple of days later I again inadvertently made the mistake of boarding one of these xialis and wouldn't you know who was in the driver's seat! The same driver from hell. He looked at me with a grin on his face and said: ”My, I remember you. You're the lady who didn't want to die!” However, it was too late to escape, and so the red devil dashed across the city once again as the driver's ghoulish laughter echoed in the air.

Taxi rides and palm reading

It's not always easy to find your way around in Beijing. (Image: Radio86)One of my most memorable taxi experiences dates from a couple of years back. Close to the building where I was living there was an intersection where the traffic lights could take up to ten minutes to change. On this particular day, seated at the back of a cab, I found myself exchanging thoughts with the friendly driver. Suddenly he asked me if he could read my palm. I thought, why not? and so he started examining my hand and telling me my future. According to his forecast, I would of course become very successful and happy (at least that is how I wanted to interpret it). Unfortunately, I could not understand everything due to my insufficient Chinese skills. When the lights turned red he also wanted to examine the shape of my skull, which he by the way said was very stately, in order to tell my future. When I finally reached my destination and was stepping out of the car, the driver took me by the hand and said that it had been very nice to meet me. And I did not pay one yuan extra for getting my fortune told!