The air is thick with cigarette smoke and Cantonese profanity as half a dozen taxi drivers sit next to their fire engine red herbs in a quiet corner of Hong Kong’s Prince Edward area.
It’s afternoon handover time, when shift drivers hand over their taxis to those who work at night. They offer the taxi agent, a matriarchal figure who collects car rentals, manages their schedules and offers unsolicited advice about getting more exercise and quitting smoking. The drivers waved him around.
There may be no more difficult task in this city of over seven million people than trying to change the habits of taxi drivers. Often angry and in a hurry for the next fare, Hong Kong cabbies have for decades done things their own way, reflecting the fast-paced and hectic culture that has long energized the city.
But taxi drivers are under pressure to keep up with the times. Their passengers are tired of being driven recklessly, treated badly and, in many cases, having to pay their fares in cash – one of the strangest things about life in Hong Kong. The practice is so entrenched that airport staff often have to warn visitors at taxi ranks that they need to carry bills.
The government, due to complaints and to revive tourism, has tried to strengthen the taxi drivers. Officials launched a campaign this summer urging motorists to behave themselves. They set up a points system where bad behavior by drivers – such as overcharging or refusing passengers – will be tracked and can lead to the loss of licences.
In early December, the government proposed that all taxis install systems that would allow them to accept credit cards and digital payments by the end of 2025, and add surveillance cameras by the end of 2026.
Predictably, many taxi drivers have opposed the idea of close surveillance.
“Would you like to be watched all the time?” said Lau Bing-kwan, a 75-year-old cabbie with thinning white hair who only accepts cash. “The government is issuing too many orders.”
Hold On To Your Seats
The new controls, if put in place, could mark the end of an era of industry that has long been a mystery to Hong Kong’s world-class transport system. Every day, millions of people travel safely on smooth subways and reliable air-conditioned double-decker buses.
Taking a taxi, in comparison, can be an adventure. Step into one of Hong Kong’s four-door Toyota Crown Comfort sedans and you’ll probably be greeted (what’s the opposite of being greeted?) by a man in his 60s or so with a bunch of cellphones near his dashboard – sometimes used for GPS navigation and other times for tracking horse racing results. Pleasantries will not be changed. Wait for the gas pedal to be depressed.
You’ll then grab the handle and try not to slide off the midnight blue vinyl seats as you zip and turn through the city’s infamous streets. Finally, before you get to your destination, you will prepare your small bills and coins to avoid angering the driver with a time-consuming exit.
“If they take you out, you have to be quick,” said Sylvia He, a professor of urban studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who, like many residents of the city, feels ready to walk on eggshells around the cupboard. “I don’t want to delay their next order.”
In many cabins, impatience and brutality are the manifestation of its harsh reality: when you are going through a business with diminishing monetary rewards, there is no time to spend on the good things of society. Lau Man-hung, a 63-year-old driver, for example, skips meals and bathroom breaks just to stay behind the wheel long enough to take home about $2,500,500 a month, barely making it through one of the city’s most expensive cities. the world.
“Some customers are very fans,” said Mr. Lau using a Cantonese word that means to cause trouble and anger. “They like to cry about which route they should take. They tell you to go quickly.”
The Fragile Economics of Industry
Driving a cab was a decent way to make a living. But business has become very tight, made worse by China’s economic slowdown. The city has struggled to renew its tourist appeal, while its bars and nightclubs, once packed with crowds crammed into narrow streets, now attract fewer revelers.
Even before the recession, some taxi licensees were struggling. Taxi licenses are regulated by the government and sold in a loosely regulated market. Some owners lost heavily after a speculative bubble drove prices down to nearly $1 million for a single license a decade ago, then burst.
Today, licenses cost about two-thirds of what they were a decade ago. Many businesses and licensed drivers are more focused on recovering losses than improving service.
Tin Shing Motors, a family-owned company, manages drivers and sells taxi license mortgages and taxi insurance. Chris Chan, 47, a third-generation member of the company, says Tin Shing is saddled with debts bought at a time when licenses were most important.
To eliminate that debt, Mr. Chan needs to rent his taxis as much as possible. But he is struggling to find drivers. Most of the cabinets are old, and young people have distanced themselves from hard work. Profit margins have declined, he added, especially since insurance costs have nearly doubled in recent years. Uber, despite operating in a gray area in Hong Kong, has also taken away a lot of customers.
“It is difficult and difficult to make money,” said Mr. Chan.
Below are the drivers, almost half of whom are 60 years old and older. Many cannot afford retirement. They have to make about $14 an hour to break even after paying for gas and their car rental. For them, cash on hand is better than waiting days for electronic payments to clear.
Blue-Collar Work is Professional
The tension between the public and the taxi drivers is played out by pointing fingers at each other. When the government launched a campaign to respect people last year, a driver told a TV reporter that they were disrespectful passengers.
In many ways, Hong Kong taxi drivers embody the oppressive, understated culture of the city’s working class. Their grumpiness is nothing like the service one gets at cha chaan teng, the ubiquitous local cafes that feed the crowds with egg sandwiches, instant noodles and sweet saccharine milk tea. Servers are disconnected, but fast.
“People usually have one bad experience and remember it for the rest of their lives,” said Hung Wing-tat, a retired professor who studied the taxi industry. “Therefore, there is an opinion in the community that all taxi drivers are bad when most of them want to make a living. They don’t want problems.”
Indeed, there are cabbies like Joe Fong, 45, who finds it useless to argue with his customers and try to adapt to the needs of his passengers.
“Why are you fighting?” Said Mr. Fong. “We need each other. You need a ride and I need your money.”
Mr. Fong maximizes his income by splitting his time between driving a private car for Uber and a cab fleet called Alliance. Mr. Fong has five cell phones attached to his dashboard. He accepts electronic payments, and didn’t bat an eye when Alliance installed cameras in all their taxis last year.
“I’m not like those old people,” said Mr. Fong, who drives one of Hong Kong’s new hybrid taxis made by Toyota, looks like a cross between a London cab and a PT Cruiser. “The world has changed. You have to accept it.”
Olivia Wang responsible reporting.
Source link
