It’s been awhile. I haven’t found myself writing a blog post in quite
some time, for a variety of reasons. These
range, in no particular order, from: lack of time, other projects to complete,
work, travel, lack of motivation, Chelsea winning the Champions League,
etcetera. Anyhow, here we are.
Here I am, still in Singapore, a country where things can quickly become prohibitively expensive. Taxi cabs, believe it or not, tell you a lot about a new place. Coming from life in Korea, where cabs were plentiful, inexpensive, and ubiquitous, I felt shocked when getting my first cab bill. Korean cabs have this knack of appearing whenever you need it; whether it be at midnight after a futsal match or 5 am after night out downtown. Imagine my surprise at the jostle and surge each time I try to grab a frequently infrequent cab in Singapore. Long lines face the poor punter trying to go home for the night, and “cab stands” populate the popular spots throughout the city. When I first arrived in the city, I got confused with cab stand etiquette and ended up waiting for over forty five minutes in line. Another time, after a night out with colleagues, I literally spent an hour near Clarke Quay, a tourist hot spot, waiting to find a cab to get home. What else can one do but wait, except for sleep under park benches?
These days there exist many interesting economic indexes, creatively inspired from Big Macs and beyond. I’d be interested to see one that compared taxi fares across the countries. I think they tell a lot of things; from personal wealth and the efficiency of public transit to traffic volume and beyond. In any case, taxis are not cheap here. A taxi home generally costs $20 SGD for me. I live in the north east of Singapore, unfortunately and quite literally on the other side of the country from most of my colleagues and friends. When you factor in the “flag down” fee of $2-3, the 50% late night surcharge, the extra charges if I booked it on my phone or mistakenly flagged it down in the wrong part of town, the pitiful passenger is left staring at a wallet crushing bill. It’s all the more dispiriting when it is contrasted to Korea. In Pohang, we foreigners travelled almost exclusively by taxi, across, under, between, and through the town and never peaked 10 000 won (about ten bucks).
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| Singapore's finest. |
So what does this all
mean? Well, Singapore is a busy place
with a great public transport system.
That’s a fact. But, there are
times when you can’t wait for thirty or forty minutes to get across town. That’s how I occasionally find myself in one
of Singapore’s killer cabs: financially, a calamity. But, taxis in Singapore sometimes offer more
than an empty wallet at the end. 500
words in and I finally get to my point: Singaporean cab drivers are totally
awesome. They are some of the most
entertaining people: humble, talkative, and interesting. They aren’t ostentatious, rude, or
stern. They have none of the hang-ups
some other people do with talking to foreigners. I think it’s because they deal with so many
strange characters in the course of a working week they have no time to be
taken aback anyway. Now, don’t get me
wrong – there are bad apples in every bunch.
But, for the most part, cab drivers here are fantastic.
I liken them to the court
jesters, the disrespected characters on the margins that have the greatest
understanding of all. In a country where
much of personal political opinion is kept sidelined and hidden behind closed doors,
cab drivers are the only citizens I’ve come across willing to open their mouths
about the country to a foreigner. It was
a cab driver who explained to me that every race and its corresponding religion
get accorded two public holidays a year.
It was a cab driver that explained to me that Malay-Singaporeans –
though citizens equal under the law and thus mandated to serve the almost two
year military service required of all males – are segregated and kept mostly
within the infantry units. He even went
on to explain why: with Singapore’s main military rival being Malaysia, in the
unlikely event of a confrontation the government didn’t trust its own Malays to
pilot the tanks and the planes and the other expensive machines in case they
defected. Again, it was a cab driver who
explained that to diffuse potential race riots Muslims are allowed to flout
common traffic laws during afternoon prayer on Fridays.
In Korea, though I frequented
cabs so much more, only once or twice did I happen upon a driver who spoke more
than a few words of English. So used to
getting into a cab and muttering something along the lines of “anyunghaesaeyo, edong songdong,
ga-chu-sae-yo” was I that when faced with conversation in a cab in
Singapore, I was taken aback. However, I
can talk to most people, so it came naturally.
Then, when a cabbie asked me which way I wanted to take home, I was
suspicious once again. Why would he ask
me how to get home? I pay the fare so
that he takes care of that decision. I
thought that there couldn’t possibly be anyone who would care enough as to
demand a specific route: the man must have been trying to hoodwink this beloved
ignoramus out of his hard earned money.
Now I realize it’s a just a conversation starter, a way to break the
ice, to get to know the face in the back seat.
From where I sit, it’s hard to decide: the expensive conversation of
Singapore or the cheap efficiency of Korea?
Anyhow, here’s what everyone
wants: pictures & videos. Here's a common thunderstorm -- almost a daily occurance -- and some flooding near my house:
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| Coffeeshop (food court) near my apartment. |
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| Who ya gonna call? |
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| "Kickapoo," "Joy Juice." Enough said.. |
