Posted On: Friday - September 29th 2023 10:57AM MST
In Topics: Music Cars China iEspionage
(Continued from **Planes**, **Planes-II**, **Trains**, **Trains-II**, **Trains-III** and **Automobiles** of our Dispatches from The Middle Kingdom: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles series.)
"Yo, Taxi!!"
No, that's not how you do it in China, not even in Chinese. You walk up to one of them when it's in traffic, maybe see someone in the back and still have a conversation through the open window with the driver about whether we can work out a deal. The passenger in the back sits calmly, and the driver figures this out. I gotta say, it's very impressive to see this kind of cooperation. In America, the guy wouldn't stop, and if he'd talk to you, it be to give you shit for bothering him with a rider in the back. I really appreciate the calmness and respect, but then read on about a not so nice story.
I am pretty sure one can use cash too, though the Chinese people seem all fine with the money app on their phones.* This is what I saw mainly in the small(er!) Chinese village though.
What they've got in China, though, is an uber-Uber system, using the "Didi" app. There are others, but I imagine this most popular program will become another web monopoly. I also am pretty sure the Chinese Gov't is involved, if not directly, behind the scenes, whether the company is private or a State owned company. This thing is ubiquitous.
Here at home, I have gotten away without personally loading Lyft or Uber, but I've ridden many times. From what I saw, the Chinese app does even more. Go figure. The app there probably sends even more info on what's going on back to (eventually) the Government. Gotta keep track of people - the taxi driver's version of the software gets other info, but the main thing is that this forces those using taxis in this way to have that piece of iEspionage on-board.
Holy crap, though, for a smart population, these people are just as, or more, dependent on their phones than the average American. I mean, this taxi driver in the village has got to know the main streets at least. The general friendliness among the unified Han population means that you take a rider in the front seat (for economics too, as these are small cars) and can discuss the route. Yet that big screen is up there displaying the route and barking away in Mandarin.** Same as at home, "we got it! STFU!" (That's ME, at home, anyway, when my wife leaves it on.)
As it turned out one time, app or no app, the driver was taking us the long way to make more money. Oooh boy, did she get chewed out by the passenger in our party riding shotgun... the whole way back, haha. This was not a one-off thing. I asked what the lecture was about, after we'd gotten to our destination. "I told her you people have no morals ..." Also, how do you get away with this anyway, by putting a new way-point on the app somehow, or did she just ignore the moving map.
Now, about the economics of it all, it MUST be subsidized. The numbers just didn't work out for me. We'd go 10-15 minutes in traffic, say 3-8 miles, and pay the equivalent of a dollar, a dollar fifty tops. Here's the problem:
That's 8.85 gallons for $38*** = $4.29 per gallon. There's a big monopoly gas station chain called Sinopec, but the color scheme is green. This may have been another. This was not some high outlier though, or we wouldn't have been there. Prices were cheaper by 5-10 % in Peking.
I imagine those little engines may get, being generous, 35 mpg in traffic, but still, that's 75¢ to a buck in gas, while making a buck to a buck fifty. There's wear on the car, so for even these working class Chinamen and -women taxi drivers to make only $2 to $4 an hour stressing out in traffic and driving continuously before other expenses doesn't seem right. (I don't mean in the moral sense, just economically.) Keep in mind that tipping is not a thing in China. Oh, and Didi or whoever takes a cut too.****
I was told that the gas is subsidized for taxi drivers, but even if it were half, I don't see how these people can survive - must be more to it.
Interestingly, China is like New Jersey. "How, so?" the reader may ask. C'mon, ask it! The gas stations are not self-service. Boy, that's a throwback to long ago. Is it a jobs program, or are there some tricks that drivers would play otherwise?
The convenience of taxi transportation at near-nominal rates is just another part of the transportation world we don't have in America. OTOH, people have got to make decent money too.
As a driver making peanuts and no tips in stressful traffic conditions in China, I don't know... would I rather be in China or be a Harry Chapin in long-ago Frisco, taking tips... and getting stoned ... he was gonna learn to fly, you know.
* OTOH, I didn't get a chance to talk to someone about this - whether there are many people who are against this Orwellian system but don't want to stand out railing against it.
** I suppose... I wonder if it can be set to the local dialect. Did these apps come at a time (last 5 years) by which Mandarin is understood by almost everyone, if need be?
*** The exchange rate at the time was ~ 7.12 元 : $1
**** Do these Chinese folks do the same irresponsible thinking as many Uber and Lyft drivers in ignoring long-term big maintenance or vehicle replacement in the calculations? I've been meaning to write a post on that.
Comments:
M
Saturday - September 30th 2023 6:15AM MST
PS
"I don't see how these people can survive - must be more to it…Is it a jobs program?"
The immediate thing that came to mind was your conversion to dollars is wrong. You are a foreigner; that you are getting ripped off on currency conversion is a given.
Were you paying the driver in dollars and then looking at the gas pump and doing the conversion via published prices?
As for the multiple baggers - when you have too many people and no welfare, they work for cheap. Possibly they get fed as part of it.
Yes, there's some welfare - if you are in your home village. Likely none of the people you met are "local" that way, so it's "root hog, or starve."
Still beats farming though. Which is why there is such a wave coming to the city.
"I don't see how these people can survive - must be more to it…Is it a jobs program?"
The immediate thing that came to mind was your conversion to dollars is wrong. You are a foreigner; that you are getting ripped off on currency conversion is a given.
Were you paying the driver in dollars and then looking at the gas pump and doing the conversion via published prices?
As for the multiple baggers - when you have too many people and no welfare, they work for cheap. Possibly they get fed as part of it.
Yes, there's some welfare - if you are in your home village. Likely none of the people you met are "local" that way, so it's "root hog, or starve."
Still beats farming though. Which is why there is such a wave coming to the city.
Moderator
Friday - September 29th 2023 7:23PM MST
PS: Agreed, SafeNow. Until recently, there was a surplus of labor, so I'd see lots of people doing jobs that here might be automated, especially service jobs. That's changing quickly though, as the last of the children from before the 1-child policy are in their forties now.
SafeNow
Friday - September 29th 2023 2:00PM MST
PS
“I don't see how these people can survive - must be more to it…Is it a jobs program?”
I wondered the same thing when I was in a small grocery store in the Peking outskirts years ago. Not one but two baggers were juggling my small purchase into a bag, arranging and rearranging the contents. My
theory is that in China they must subsidize all of the “stupid” people with jobs like this “Stupid” means IQ100. (In the US 100 IQ would be teachers or the like.). The subsidy is indirectly paid for by the highly educated and productive civil engineers, etc.
“I don't see how these people can survive - must be more to it…Is it a jobs program?”
I wondered the same thing when I was in a small grocery store in the Peking outskirts years ago. Not one but two baggers were juggling my small purchase into a bag, arranging and rearranging the contents. My
theory is that in China they must subsidize all of the “stupid” people with jobs like this “Stupid” means IQ100. (In the US 100 IQ would be teachers or the like.). The subsidy is indirectly paid for by the highly educated and productive civil engineers, etc.
So, it was indeed $4.29/G after the 2 conversions - $ to Yuan (or RMB, as in "The People's Money", yeah right!) and liters to gallons.