taxi drivers

Walking home tonight I was surprised to be stopped by someone addressing me as ‘sir’ immediately after he said ‘excuse me’. I was first taken back by such courtesy which is so rarely exhibited here in Singapore especially to a stranger. There are the rare instances of it though. A few weeks back I was on the east west line of the MRT and it wasn’t a packed train but it was pretty full. I was standing since I normally stand on the train but all of the seats in the area were taken anyway. An old man came aboard and almost immediately a young spore stood up and offered the seat. I was really impressed that the boy gave up the seat since so many times you see kids sitting there texting on their phones or playing video games oblivious to anything else going on around them... much less give up their seat. I would think the man would even have given a slight smile or something like say 'thanks' to the boy but instead he just took the seat (It is possible I missed the subtlety of the gesture of thanks since I may not be trained to see it and was only expecting some type of Western thanks). It even made ME feel good just to be standing there which sounds strange! It seems like there is so little expression of thanks here and people don’t seem happy. This event demonstrated the kind of courtesy I’ve usually only observed on government posters posted in the cars and on the walls of the MRTs defining what ‘graciousness is’: offering up your seat to those who need it more than you, or maybe directing the elderly or those with too many shopping bags away from the escalator and into the elevator since it’s much more safe (I seriously learned this tip from one of the videos the play in the MRT about ‘MRT platform safety’…can you imagine: carrying too many shopping bags to ride an escalator safely!?). If these kinds of common courtesies were only put into action a fraction of the time this really would be a more wonderful and safe world! Back to the point: so, this guy said, ‘Excuse me, Sir. Do you know where Hooters is?’
I smiled inside as I simultaneously realized the group was both American and itching to go to Hooters… I figured they were on shore leave from a Navy boat in dock ( I later found out this was true and there is a big U.S. boat in dock here right now). “Oh, you want to go to Hooters?... ” “Yeah, it’s by the water, right?” I noticed we were next to some kind of water canal just off Orchard Road I had never noticed before. “Yeah, but not by this water….” It really was close enough to walk but I figured they would get lost and you want to walk into Hooters cool and collected with your game on, not all sweaty from a long walk … so I’ve heard. Instead I gave him directions to take the MRT since we were standing right by a station and it’s only one station away. He seemed convinced but the other acted like it would be too much trouble and he asked if it’s easier to take a cab… which it obviously is, it just didn’t occur to me to tell them to take a cab for some reason. Then he asked if they take a cab should he tell the driver to run the meter or get a fixed rate. I was literally stunned for a second from the question and I told him I had never even heard of negotiating a fixed rate in a cab here. It should be like a $6 cab ride to get them there I told him. Then he told me the cab drivers had picked them up at the U.S. base and told them he’d take them into town for $10 each! The only fixed rate cabs I know of here are the $35 fixed rate for the Mercedes limo cabs and that’s a rate to take you anywhere on the whole island. So these guys had put 4 guys in a normal cab and gave the driver $40 for what should have been like a $15 cab ride and since they didn’t know the difference they thought the driver was doing them a favor (actually this is common in Bangkok for cab drivers to do and I’ve done it before and you can negotiate a better rate sometimes but that’s Thailand and they’re Buddhists and here in Singapore you’re dealing with some penny mongering cab driver who only believes in making money and could care less about Karma or whatever else it is that makes Thai’s so nice…and it’s Singapore that’s supposedly the 1st would country and so civilized (in defense to the cab drivers, they do have to work like 6 hour shifts just to break even for the day, they keep working for another 6 to 8 hours so they can make some money)). It kills me that apparently all the other guys on their boat where doing it too because they thought they were getting a deal. Too bad the taxi drivers are conniving bastards. They must love it when the ships come into town. Even normally when you’re on the meter they will always test you to see if you know where you’re going or if you’re just some guy in town for a few days on a business trip in which case he’ll chose his own route which is always longer. And they know when you know they’re going the wrong way because they’ll all of a sudden look in disgust or dismay at their meter and tell you it should be less and give you a lower price… this has happened to both me and my other coworker from San Diego several times. My point of this entry is that I cannot believe how cheating some people can be. And cheating grunts in the armed services seems really low. They must do it all the time and they must love it when ships come in so they can make easy money.