One morning, my wife needed to run an important errand at a Beijing government office, so we set out as a merry group — me, my wife and her mother.
The office was too distant to reach on foot, with my mother-in-law’s ailing ankle. The bus was cumbersome, the subway inconvenient. So, we opted for a cab, one of the wonders of the capital city.
Beijing is sprawling, ten times the size of, say, metropolitan London, with five freeways, or ring roads, circling it center like the concentric bands of a spider web. Some 70,000 taxis service this area, like worker bees buzzing a hive. Uber and Lyft have yet to arrive here, leaving the city the sole domain of the cabbie hacks, or shi fu (sher foo).
The fares are relatively cheap; you can cross the entire city for less than $15. On one cross-town trip, my wife and I took the subway in one direction and cabbed it back in the other. The subway cost less than $2 for both of us but required riding for 20 stations with a line change.
The taxi fare was $12 and included a joking, give-and-take with one of the city’s blue-collar tour guides. Most drivers are men; amicable, working-class fellows with thick Beijing accents with rolling r’s, easily distinguishable from those in other parts of China. They sip tea from flasks and, over the course of their daily travels, listen to a popular Beijing radio show called “Cross Talk” which features witty word play reminiscent of Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First?”
Time was, many cabbies kept a picture of Chairman Mao dangling from their rear-view mirror, like some Jesus Christ-like good luck charm, but I have seen fewer of these in recent years, as the older generation, more observant of Communist traditions, gives way to the new.
Our driver was straight out of Beijing central casting: a burly man with fleshy eye bags from so many hours behind the wheel. As usual, my wife was a bit hazy on the precise location of our destination, so she rode shotgun in the front seat — with Mama and me in the back — carrying on a running, logistical dialogue with our driver.
These days, many Beijing cabbies use satellite technology but, even so, addresses in the capital city are still often hard to decipher. Adding to our troubles on this morning was the fact that our route took us past the bustling Beijing’s Children’s Hospital, snarling traffic for miles in either direction.
The view from the back seat featured bedraggled and disheveled parents, some carrying infants wrapped up against the chill, others pulling toddlers along by hand, all with troubled looks on their faces.
I’ve often thought them among the two saddest words in any language:
Children’s Hospital.
Whether the outside scenes are poignant or humorous, cabs have provided me with a front row seat to life in busy Beijing. And in more than twenty-some years, they have changed but little.
In 2004, the city replaced the older and smaller red cars with a fleet of newer, roomier taxis with green-and-yellow color schemes. Slowly, the fares crept up. In the 1990s, accounting for exchange rates, the base fare sliding into a cab was one dollar. Today, it’s about two.
Of course, it’s much easier to travel a native speaker. But on newspaper assignments, or during trips when my wife didn’t come along, I had a back-up plan. Written directions often left too many questions, so when I hopped inside, I’d hand my cell phone to the driver. On the other end was a relative, usually my late sister-in-law, Liu Ning, who gave him the address and, if needed, precise directions.
If this all sounds like I was like one of those hapless kids traveling alone on some U.S. airline flight, watched over by the parental flight attendants, well, that’s because I was.
Hey, whatever works.
On road trips to some countryside city, my brother in law would hail some local cabbie and then pay the fare to a location he couldn’t find himself, following the taxi in his own car.
Over countless rides, I have seen little taxi xenophobia in China. Of course, there’s the occasional driver who will spot me, a big lumbering white devil, and refuse to stop. On occasion, I have waited in the wings for a taxi to pull over for my wife and then spring into the front seat before the hapless driver could drive off.
China is not alone in this regard. When I lived in Seoul nearly a decade ago, many ex-pats like me often found it nearly impossible to hail a cab in inclement weather. The drivers would pass by our waving hands and imploring looks without a second thought. I guess they figured there was some deserving Korean waiting up the road, so why waste their dry, warm back seat on a foreigner?
And the availability of cabs in a foreign land, much like public bathrooms, has always remained a mystery to me. Don’t need one? They’re virtually everywhere. Gotta get someplace pronto?
Fergettabbboudit. Not one to be found.
I won’t say the route to the government office, past the busy Children’s Hospital, was the cab ride from hell. Maybe just purgatory (you Catholics will get the image).
For several traffic light signals, no car moved. That was largely because Beijing drivers have this annoying habit when making a left turn at a crowded intersection: vehicles will piggy back on the car before them, creating a chain that is difficult to break, continuing long after the left-turn arrow goes dark and the right-of-way subsides.
Horns honk. Still they come. As though saying, “I’m getting through this intersection. You will be inconvenienced, and you will like it.”
To break the monotony, or stress, of any inner-city ride, I usually resort to a little routine developed over the years.
First, when I hop inside, whether I have a translator or not, I casually inquire, “Ni dai wo qu Luo Shan Ji ma?
“Can you take me to Los Angeles?”
That usually breaks the ice, whether it evokes a smile or frown.
Next, I’ll look at the ID picture every cabbie must post inside his car.
“Who’s that?” I’ll ask.
“Me, of course,” usually comes the answer.
“No, no way,” I’ll say. You’re much younger than that picture.”
And when I leave, I always part with a compliment.
“Thank you,” I’ll say. “Ni shi shifu de shifu.”
“You are the boss of bosses.”
My material usually goes over well. Except one time it didn’t.
During one ride in Beijing years ago, I began telling the driver naughty jokes. Mine are innocent and my wife obliged me to translate them.
The driver laughed. He liked them. A little too much, maybe.
He began telling his own XXX jokes. I only learned about them later because my wife refused to translate inside the cab. (I still only know generalities). But I got a tongue-lashing about being inappropriate with strangers in public spaces.
On this day, there were no jokes, only compliments. After nearly an hour in traffic, we reached the neighborhood and both my wife and the driver craned their necks to read the addresses on the skyscrapers that loomed over the street.
We finally found the right place. The driver pulled over and I heard the familiar musical chime as the machine printed out our receipt.
Our driver eased back into traffic and I watched him go. We probably wouldn’t have found the place without him.
He was the boss of bosses.
