China Taxi Uber Alles

Conversations with Chinese taxi drivers

I speak with taxi drivers only grudgingly. I imagine that, if I were ever to become one, people would in turn speak with me only grudgingly. This is karma, and as we all know, karma is a bitch. Taxi drivers used to annoy the crap out of me. They would never stop for me, despite being “For Hire”, they would never simply agree to go where I needed to go, they would need to be begged, persuaded and cajoled. Then they would take four left turns and drive around the block just to make an extra buck — all the while complaining, or talking on their mobile phone, or listening to endless advertisements on the radio, once, I even had one that chewed on raw garlic as she drove. I kid you not. Arriving at my destination was only the beginning of further torment, as the driver would refuse to break my hundred yuan note, because actually having to unzip his or her fanny pack would take such a monumental effort as to hardly be worth it.

All that ended when Uber came on the scene in China, suddenly we all had a choice, and we all chose Uber. In Xi’an, I watched social media videos of taxi drivers beating up Uber drivers and threatening their passengers. The war was spilling out onto the streets and the authorities did not like it one bit. They tried to outlaw it, regulate it, raid it, shut it down, but they could not fight the…