What's with those Beijing taxis?

"How much do we have to pay?" my wife asked as the taxi driver pulled his car over to the side of the road in Beijing's Zhongguancun.

"Of course by the meter," the driver said while pointing at the small device. It said we owed 38 yuan ($6).

"No way," my wife said, trying to contain her temper. Still, I could detect the anger in her voice.

It was nearly 9 pm on a sultry summer night last week, and we had been traveling for more than half an hour trying to find our destination - Zhongguancun Bookstore. Though not a landmark, it's one of the city's largest, and finding it, we had presumed, should not be particularly difficult for a taxi driver.

We were wrong.

Once we had hopped into a taxi on the North Fourth Ring Road and told our driver where we wanted to go, a confused look came across his face. Having been to the place and vaguely remembering where it was, I tried to explain how to get there. An idea seemed to dawn on the driver and he stepped on the gas and veered south.

Traffic was not bad, and I reckoned we could get to the bookstore in less than 10 minutes. For a second, I doubted that we were going in the right direction - the bookstore was to the west, rather than south, of where we had started. But I decided not to question the driver, instead giving him the benefit of the doubt.

"Maybe he is taking a shortcut," I thought.

I was sorely mistaken.

My error became apparent only when the driver was about to go south of the Third Ring Road. I suddenly realized where he was taking us: not to Zhongguancun Bookstore, but to the National Library.

Rather than apologizing for his disorientation, the driver asked us to get out and take another cab. We refused. At our insistence, he picked up his cell phone to ask his friend for directions. Still confused, he pulled over to solicit the same information from pedestrians.

When we finally arrived, we decided to pay only half of the fare amount shown on the meter - that was what it would have cost to get us to our destination without the unnecessary detour - and left as quickly as possibly before the driver could jump out of his seat for a fight. We entered the bookstore just in time to hear music indicating that the place was about to close.

Beijing taxi drivers have long been considered the city's "calling card" and have been well-known for their sense of humor, garrulity and knowledge of domestic and international affairs. A taxi driver can be a one-person department of philosophy and political science. While in transit, I've often taken joy in hearing an unsolicited lecture about the possible composition of the Party's Political Bureau or an update on tensions in the Middle East.

Yet, it has been a long time since I last experienced one of these light moments. Beijing taxi drivers seem to be becoming more silent. Some don't even know their way around the city, presenting a stark contrast to their London counterparts, who know that complex metropolis from end to end.

When I take a cab home from the airport nowadays, I'm likely to hear a driver start to curse "outrageous fortune" and complain about my "too short" journey. In response, I've taken on the habit of offering drivers an extra 15 yuan even before they open their mouths. I have also heard my foreign colleagues, as well as Chinese friends from outside Beijing, complain on many occasions about how they were ripped off by cab drivers at the airport or train stations.

"No one in urban Beijing wants to be in the trade any more," a cab driver once told me, while recalling the good old days in the early 1990s, when a cabby's monthly income was well above the average made by city residents.

"It is much harder to make a living nowadays. Each day I wake up, I owe 200 yuan to my company," he said, referring to the fixed monthly "management fee" he has to pay. This, in addition to rising costs and long workdays, has made the job all the more unattractive and transformed the composition of the industry's workforce, as well as the quality of its service.

You Chenli, a researcher at Beijing's Transition Institute who has been monitoring the industry for years, believes that 90 percent of Beijing taxi drivers today are former farmers who hail from the city's suburbs. They are often under-trained and lack professional and ethical qualifications.

That may explain why taking a cab is becoming an increasingly unpleasant experience.

On July 21, when Beijing was deluged by the heaviest rain in 61 years, about 80,000 travelers found themselves stranded at the airport with almost no taxis in sight. The few drivers that were there were charging up to 10 times their usual fares.

"It's like looting a house that has caught fire," cried a newspaper headline.

Extreme weather puts a city's conscience and its public services to the test. On that rainy day, both Beijing taxi drivers and those who are supposed to supervise them failed.

The author is a writer at China Daily and can be reached at huangxiangyang@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 08/23/2012 page8)