Almost exactly one year ago today, the first Beijing resident I met was a taxi driver who ripped me off to the tune of 400 RMB (60 USD) for a short ride from the airport to my hotel. Welcome to China.
Ever since that day, I've had a love-hate relationship with the men and a few women behind the wheel of various Hyundai Elantras, Volkswagen Jettas, and other fine automobiles. But the basic fact is, it would be impossible for me to get around Beijing without them. As professionals, they truly do a better job navigating the streets, roads, and expressways than the typical Beijing motorist ever could.
After surviving two crashes and skating through near-misses too numerous to mention, I simply must still give proper respect to the taxi drivers and their immaculate, well-maintained vehicles (how else could the Elantra 5-speed manual transmission be so nimble in bumper-to-bumper traffic? I mean, who knew?). Not only that, but after 12 months, I also need to give them credit for avoiding practically each and every man, woman, child, bicycle, tricyle, pedicab, rickshaw, ox cart, horse-drawn rolling fruit stand, motorscooter, motorcycle, illegally-licensed truck, car, bus, and other taxi-driving scum on the road.
Any suggestion you may have heard that Beijing taxi drivers spent months learning English skills to welcome foreigners to the Olympic games was absolutely untrue. And now that the Games are long past, the drivers have all forgotten whatever English skills they never learned in the first place. But consider this: you'll stand a better chance finding an English-speaking taxi driver in Beijing than in any large city in the United States. True.
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