TAIPEI - “In Taipei, if you can’t get a taxi in one minute you’re damn
unlucky,” so said a Singaporean friend who has lived in the
Taiwanese capital for seven years.
I couldn’t have put it better. Ok, maybe I would have said two
minutes. The fact is it is ridiculously easy to hail a Xiao Huang -
Taiwanese nickname for taxis - in the bustling metropolis of 6.6
million people at all hours of the day, even at peak periods like
the lunch hour.
And inexpensive too. A 10km trip costs NT$245 (S$10.30), and
there are no surcharges save for an extra NT$20 between 11pm
and 6am.
Indeed, before June 2011 booking a cab with major cab companies
like Taiwan Taxi would have helped you save - yes, save - up to 30
per cent off the fare. The perk was removed after the government
banned taxi companies from passing off the cost to cabbies.
But, for all that, the best part of a cab journey in Taipei is
the cabby.
Because if taxi-drivers are the window to the character of the
people they serve, then Taipei’s are
some of the warmest, honest, and folksiest you will ever
encounter.
Just two weeks ago, I got into the car of a driver who appeared
to be in his late 50s. During the 20-minute journey he pointed me
to various sights in the musing, semi-monologue fashion of a
kindly uncle.
“Look at the red flowers outside that house, so pretty,” he
said.
“Oh, nice,” I nodded, my mind on the interview I was heading
to.
We drove pass a bread shop. “Have
you tried their bread before? I have, it’s quite good,” the
cabby said.
I said I have and it was delicious. Then I told him the place he
was driving me to was also a bread shop, called Bu Lie De, the
Chinese pinyin for “bread”.
“Oh, Bu Lie De is also a man’s name in English, right?” he uncle
said, perking up now that he had my full attention. “Now which name
is it?”
“Brad, as in Brad Pitt, the famous Hollywood actor,” I offered,
amused.
Moments later, we had arrived at my destination. I paid the fare
and alighted - only to realise that the cabby had dropped me at the
wrong place. It was too far to walk so I waited by the road for
another cab. One came (in under two minutes) and I got in. Lo and
behold, it was the same cabby!
“I discovered that something wasn’t right so I turned back again
to look for you,” he said happily, visibly relieved. “Good thing
you’re still there.”
And he took me to the right place this time at no extra
charge.
Another time I was on my way to another assignment, and had a
nice chat with the cabby on the trip. When we arrived, he said with
a conspiratorial grin: “Look what I’ve got here?” and pointed
to a small, black mass in the front passenger seat.
It was a pug. It had been sleeping quietly in the car and I
never would have guessed it was there.
“I bring it along with me every day,” the cabby said as I patted
his co-driver. “And tell only those passengers whom I think are
into dogs.”
Away from densely populated Taipei, the taxis become scarcer,
but the heart of the service stays
the same.
Some time ago I had travelled to the south-western city of
Tainan to cover a press conference. When it was over I took a cab
back to the train station. During our conversation the driver
discovered that I had yet to try my luck in the lotto in
Taiwan.
“Seriously? You must try it then,” he said, and asked if I would
mind buying a ticket for him as I would have beginner’s luck. I was
happy to oblige, and he stopped outside a lottery shop while I
popped into the shop to buy two computer picked numbers.
“Good luck to us,” he said when I gave him his ticket. That was
my first and only shot at the Taiwan lottery so far.
Aside from these stand-out encounters, I’ve also met drivers who
could wax lyrical about Taiwan politics like professors, those who
told me they had visited Singapore and rattled off the names of our
tourist attractions, female cabbies who decorate their cars with
little pots of flowers and wore detachable sleeves to protect their
arms from the sun. They are genuine, unguarded and down-to-earth to
a fault.
Surveys by the Taiwan tourism bureau show that the one thing
about the island that consistently leaves the deepest impression on
foreign tourists is its friendly people.
Taiwanese cabbies doubtless have
something to do with it.
http://www.stasiareport.com/the-big-story/asia-report/blogs/story/taiwan-cabbies-its-always-friendly-ride-20130311