Since everyone likes to compare with HK TDs, thought I'd share
an article on HK TDs. This article was written in 2008. Seems
that we have a lot in common...
Everybody in Hong Kong has a taxi driver story. Some are weird
and wonderful; others are outright horror shows. Some taxi drivers
want to be your best friend, some want to take a tire iron to your
head—and some maybe both. Cabbies can be loudmouths, comedians,
know-it-alls or bores. They can also be perverts, drunks, creeps
and vulgarians. But more than all that, more than anything else, it
seems like all of them are just goddamn crazy.
We read about their ills everyday. They cheat people on their
fares. They charge people when returning lost property. They block
up the streets with their protests about fuel prices or competition
from hired vans. They pollute the air with their idling engines—and
when told not to, they protest about that too. Not that they’d have
a clue about any of the issues they whine about, as Regina Ip
famously told them.
They’re addicted to cheap booze, cigarettes and horseracing. Not
to mention prostitutes and sleazy pursuits. Indeed, just months
ago, tabloids were awash with rumors of a new device installed in
cabs that would allow those beady eyes in the front mirror a quick
wander up your skirt.But that’s just the beginning. The darkest
depths of cabbie depravity and delirium made headlines in 1982. Cab
driver Lam Kor-wan was arrested after strangling a number of female
passengers with electrical wire, then dismembering them in his
parents’ house. Police raided the latter to find Tupperware
containers stuffed with sexual organs. The case was an instant hit.
It shot to the forefront of the popular imagination again ten years
later with the horror film “Doctor Lamb” (1992), starring Simon Yam
in a role that made Travis Bickle seem like a boy scout. The
following year saw Herman Yau’s “Taxi Hunter,” in which Anthony
Wong played an insurance salesman who takes revenge on all the
city’s reckless, abusive, overcharging cab drivers with a shotgun.
His anti-hero was one we were all meant to be able to sympathize
with.
So how did cabbies get so crazy? Dr. Edmund Lam, of the Hong
Kong Community Psychological Medicine Association, attributes
“neurotic tendencies” and general “craziness” among cabbies to
overwhelming stress. He gives a list of categories the latter
frequently revolves around: income, health, self-image and limited
social contact.
Income can be incredibly unstable in the taxi-driving world.
It’s contingent on uncontrollable factors like the weather and fuel
prices, and some of it lost to illegal discount businesses. “Last
month my cab driver patients were particularly frustrated because
the rain throughout June brought business down by 20-30 percent,”
says Lam. Potential accidents that injure drivers, passengers or
the car also bring costly consequences.
On the health front, Lam points out that driving in a car all
day can give you back and neck pain. He also adds that many drivers
“train themselves to hold their urine or bowel movements” for
unnatural periods of time. This not only causes physical disorders
such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome, but neurotic obsessions with
bodily functions. Alternating between day and night shifts, drivers
also have irregular diets and sleeping patterns.
The issue of self-image goes beyond just being talked down to by
rude customers. Lam points out that many middle-aged taxi drivers
may have been people in managerial positions who lost their jobs
during tough times, notably the economic crisis five years ago.
They have to adjust to new, harsh realities. Added to this are
developments such as the MTR extensions now underway, which don’t
make for very reassuring prospects. “As a result, I’ve seen some
drivers suffering from serious depression disorders.”
Finally, while it involves meeting countless new faces every
day, taxi driving can also be an incredibly lonely job. Because
they work odd hours, there’s often little sustained socializing
with anybody aside from a few other cabbies. And those with
families may well miss out on spending time with them on
Sundays.
Yet rough as all of the above are, perhaps none compare to one
overriding source of frustration among taxi drivers across Hong
Kong: You. You’re pushy, patronizing and overbearing. You complain
he’s going too slow, or too fast. You act like the traffic’s his
fault (“We’re sitting in traffic jams all day, you think we’re not
pissed off too?” asks one target of abuse).
You come in drunk and start screaming and singing or crying. You
throw up. You pass out. You wet yourself. You leave all kinds of
other icky stuff behind—including, according to one driver, your
own six-year-old kid. You fight with your lover and air all your
stupid soap-opera grievances, and ask him to pick sides. You fondle
and slobber over each other in the backseat. If you’re Stephen Gan,
you grope more than that.
And at the end of it all, you have the audacity to argue about
the fare. Or you run off without paying. Or even worse: Just two
weeks ago, the District Court heard that two 18-year-old women took
a cab from Yuen Long to Pat Heung, only to then threaten the driver
with a 32cm-long kitchen knife for all his money.
Yes, everybody in Hong Kong has a taxi story. And in the
frenzied, frantic traffic jam of modern Hong Kong life, it seems
everybody has a crazy taxi driver somewhere inside them.
