My old Chinese language textbook uses the word " 計程車 jìchéngchē" to mean taxi, in a sample conversation set in Taipei. Is this the common word for taxi?
Furthermore, the textbook contains this comment, presumably also appropriate to Taiwan: “Cultural information: Taxi drivers are not offended by comments about their driving such as the exclamation in exchange 4 (directly complaining that the driver is going too fast). If ignored, a request to slow down should be repeated.” Is this true in practice?
It’s debatable. I’d certainly ask them to slow down and if ignored to let me out. Whether or not they might be offended is another story. Probably not visibly but there are some weird ones.
This reminds me of a story. Way back maybe 35 years ago I was young, coming home from the bar, and fresh out of a youth spent in part tearing around in cars like a lunatic. The taxi driver clearly thought to get a rise out of me racing up Zhongshan at high speed. It was fast but I saw him looking back in the mirror so I started yawning, feigning boredom. I caught a glimpse of an unpleased look lol. He didn’t slow down and I eventually had to shout before he missed my turnoff fun times
I was going to tell @marasan that the people I have head use “小黃” use all sorts of slang that might not be “real slang”, but it seems that 小黃 is a real word, based on this video…
Oh, and it’s in Pleco as “(coll.) taxicab (Tw)” (CC dict) and has a “台語" entry from LAC.
Not many use 小黃 in daily conversation. It’s more of a media thing these days. The 小 conveys cuteness and I think there is not much, if anything, cute about yellow (actually orange in my eyes) taxis in Taiwan. Instead, Chinese learners should get used to the term 優步. Taxis are a dying breed anyway.
fun times
