Asides of a Cab Driver

Taxi cab rides can be really frustrating. Many of the drivers have no idea where anything in the city is. It’s not like in New York when you get in a cab and say take me to the Waldorf Astoria on Park Avenue and they automatically know how to get you there. Here, you have to tell them how to get to places and they still don’t know where they’re going. I often have to take out a map or ask them for their map and look it up myself in Chinese characters I don’t even understand, hoping my cursory knowledge of the city will suffice. Sometimes I think the cabbies take advantage of the fact that they don’t completely understand you and may not know where they’re going, by making a big deal about not understanding or knowing directions. With the meter running they’ll pull over to the side of the road and say, “oh, mrt. m – r – t. Orchard MRT? I take you to Orchard MRT?”
“No, I don’t want to go to Orchard, I want to go to the Redhill MRT. Drive down Tanglin and I’ll show you where it is.”
“Tanglin. Tan-glin. Oh, oh. Orchard MRT. I take you there.”
“Sir, please just drive and I’ll tell you when we get there.”
“Map. Show on map.”
“The meter’s running, Uncle.”
“Must look up in map.”
The meter’s at 5.50 and we haven’t even gone anywhere yet!

The other extreme is getting a really friendly driver who wants to chat you up. They often have funny and sometimes even sage comments to make. I love the drivers who listen to the radio. I often sing along and they get a kick out of it. Sometimes they’ll sing with me. Once, driving to school with Susie and Wai, the driver didn’t have a radio, so we all sang a Capella as if we were the radio, an out of tune, out of sync, out of pitch radio, but a radio none-the-less. He loved it. He sang along with us. “Sha la la la la la la.” Mostly bad 80’s music.

If any conversation is had, the opening question is almost always, "Where you from?" And as soon as I confess, it's always followed up by, "ooh, what do you think about Obama?" I find it so fascinating, that talking about Singapore politics is one step away from a capital crime, but talking about American politics is ordinary fare. I guess when you can't talk about your own, you find an outlet in talking about others.

One driver gave my roommates and I a whole spiel on love. He said you wont find it unless you actively look for it, unless you put yourself out there and take a risk and try it out. He also said the passion part of it only lasts awhile, so you need to be comfortable with yourself and know yourself in order to continue loving another. He said, “look into his eyes. You will know from his eyes.”

Then one time we were riding back from the beach (don’t get too excited, it’s not all that glamorous) after filming a directing exercise for Susie: it was me, Susie, and her DP. We get in the car with all this equipment. The taxi driver turns to Susie’s DP and says, “Did you just return from camping?” And he says, “Yes.”
“Were you comfortable?”
“Yes, very.”
“How many nights did you stay?”
“Oh, just one.”
This was way too much fun to not chime in. I turn to the DP and say, “Do you know what my favorite part of the camping trip was? … That late night swim we took.”
“Yes, you need to be more careful next time.” He says.
“Well I didn’t know the public decency laws would be so strict!”

And it continued and continued until the DP had the cab driver convinced that he was in med school studying to enter a new field of psychological gynecology.

This morning, Wai had to get to school by 9:30 to TA for her directing professor. She was nervous, because she didn’t want to be late and we were really cutting it close. “She fired her last TA for being late.”
I made a point of stressing with the cab driver that we had to go the fastest route. He refused to take us the straight way in which we requested. He swore he had a faster, better way. As we’re driving in circles around the Botanical Gardens, he’s asking us about being students. Finally I say, “She’s the teacher, she has to be there.”
He cracks up. “Teacher? The teacher can’t be late, lah. Ahahahahaha. The teacher late. Tell them you in a meeting.”
Wai’s says, “I’m not the teacher, I’m the assistant to the teacher.”
I say, “Just tell her you were in a meeting. You were meeting with your roommate to pick out the best ties to wear today.” (It’s “dress like Bobby day” on campus—Bobby is a professor who’s known for his hippy-like business casual. He wears an unbuttoned button down shirt over a white wife beater, a skinny tie and sneakers.)
Wai says, “You just can't say those things to a woman with an Oscar!”

Ah, but let us have no more talks of taxis.