“When they drop you off, you have to kind of rush,” said Sylvia He, a professor of urban studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who, like many residents of this city, feels conditioned to walk on eggshells around a cabbie. “I don’t want to delay their next order.”
To many cabbies, the impatience and brusqueness are a reflection of their harsh reality: When they are scraping by in a business with shrinking financial rewards, no time can be wasted on social niceties. For instance, Lau Man-hung, a 63-year-old driver, skips meals and bathroom breaks just to stay behind the wheel long enough to take home about US$2,500 a month, barely enough to get by in one of the most expensive cities in the world.
“Some customers are too mafan,” said Lau, using a Cantonese word that means causing trouble and annoyance. “They like to complain about which route to take. They tell you to go faster.”
AN INDUSTRY’S FRAGILE ECONOMICS
Driving a cab used to be a decent way to make a living. But business has gotten tougher, made worse by the fallout of mainland China’s economic slowdown. The city has had trouble reviving its allure with tourists, while its bars and nightclubs, once teeming with crowds squeezed into narrow alleyways, now draw fewer revellers.
Even before the downturn, some owners of taxi licenses were struggling. Taxi licenses are limited by the government and traded on a loosely regulated market. Some owners suffered huge losses after a speculative bubble drove prices up to nearly US$1 million for one license a decade ago, then burst.
Today, licenses are worth about two-thirds of their decade-ago high. Many businesses and drivers who own licenses are focused more on recouping losses than on improving service.
Tin Shing Motors, a family-owned company, manages drivers and sells taxi license mortgages and taxicab insurance. Chris Chan, a 47-year-old third-generation member of the company, says Tin Shing is saddled with mortgages bought when licenses were worth much more.
