When my mother visited me here a year and a half ago, I had a conversation with the driver who first claimed to believe that my mother was too young to be anything more than my sister. Then he started talking about how good for me as a black person to be teaching English here and enlightening the Taiwanese about my culture. I had to translate all of this to my mother. I think it’s the most Chinese I’ve ever understood, actually.
I love getting in taxis where the drivers go ridiculous speeds…especially when I’m 20 minutes behind schedule for getting to work.
My recent taxi story is getting a counterfeit $500 bill from a driver. Lesson learned? Never trust a driver who volunteers to change a $1000 dollar bill.
the other evening I had a female cabbi, she commented I was very attractive in Chinese, my Taiwanese friedns found that, I was sitting in the front seat so I started lightly rubbing her leg… taxi cab confessions…
He was using a BMW M3. It was a young guy and he was wearing driving gloves or something… He drove his car like a racecar. This is around 2-3am and I drank so I told him to stop driving crazy or id puke.
One Taxi driver completely drunk and belligerant. He ran 3 or 4 red lights, in his defense he slowed down a bit before running the intersections. Would have jumped out except I was pretty drunk too.
Since you were drunk both times, are you sure it wasn’t the same driver?
Oh the stories… Well the latest one.
Taking a ton of stuff home with the missus and the children from a big store. Driver goes off in Taiwanese about how more and more Taiwanese girls are marrying foreigners, yada yada yada yada.
My wife wanted to hit him, but considering it was pouring heavy rain, had to just smile. And he was old, and his taxi smelled like 30 years of dried betel nut juice on the floorboards.
Hopped in a taxi yesterday in Ximenting with a Japanese female friend. I’m a western-looking male.
I proceeded to talk to the driver in Chinese but he keeps talking to the Japanese girl in Chinese telling her to talk to him. She’s trying to reply in Japanese and English that she doesn’t speak Chinese and he just starts yelling louder and louder to speak Chinese and he would not listen to me.
Started raising my voice in Chinese and realize I just need to get out. Grabbed the next one no problem.
Maybe he just too old or tired or hard of hearing or scared of foreigners I don’t know.
Now I look back I’ve known taxi drivers jump out and fight because they think they need NT$70 because you open the door and got in.
Once took a taxi on the highway
He drove like Michael Schumacker’s less skilled Chinese cousin. The highway was busy and he was doing at least 110-120, weaving through the traffic. As I usually do in car trips I dozed off for most of it, hoping I’d wake up again, but one time that I opened my eyes, I saw him playing with his ipad on the dashboard, and another time he had some paper on the dashboard that he was trying to write on, all whilst weaving at dangerous speeds
I wonder if he’s still alive
Not sure if I mentioned this before. I have a female Taiwan friend who was attacked by a taxi driver and his fingernails left a scar on her chest. Only because sat down inside and then realized she wanted to grab something from 7/11.
He wanted NT$70 because she sat down and chased her.
