Taking the slow road in China

A couple of “only-in-China” moments happened to me in the past week. Both involved very minor amounts of money.

The first instance was in Changchun in Jilin province in northeast China. Upon arrival at the airport, we headed out to the taxi stand, where half a dozen taxis stood waiting.

Because I’ve learned from past experience that some taxi drivers don’t want to give receipts, which the bean counters at McClatchy need to process expense reports, we surveyed taxi drivers for one that would use the installed taxi meter that can issue a receipt at the end of a fare. Most taxis in China have these meters.

To my astonishment, no taxi driver accepted. They said the fares mandated by local authorities were too low. They didn’t want to raise the flag on the meter. I complained to a security guard nearby. There’s no taxi that can offer a receipt! He shrugged.

We negotiated with one driver. He agreed to offer us extra receipts from the tolls on the expressway. That way we could sum it up to the proper total that he demanded.

He grumbled the whole way about how little his fare was going to be.

At first, I found this a little irksome. But on reflection, I sort of admired the taxi drivers. The local authorities apparently had imposed an impractical limit on fares, and the cabbies rebelled in the only way they could. The security guard understood and sympathized.

The second incident was bizarre – at least to my eyes – but also understandable.

Upon arriving in Hefei, capital of Anhui province, yesterday, we discovered that the flight to Fuyang had been cancelled. In a hospitable fashion, China Eastern airlines had arranged a bus for passengers for the four-hour trip to Fuyang. The trip would be free.

Once on the bus, a few passengers grew annoyed. Upon inquiring, I learned that the driver opted for a pot-holed toll-free road rather than the super highway, which required paying a toll. Clearly, China Eastern had given him toll money. But he decided to pocket the cash and take the slow route, inconveniencing passengers with a longer, bumpier journey. When someone protested, he claimed he didn’t know how to get on the highway on-ramp. When we passed another highway ramp, a passenger pointed it out to him. He drove on, pretending not to hear.

It was the equivalent of taking surface roads in Los Angeles, rather than I-405.

If that bus had been full of Westerners, they probably would have wrung the driver’s neck. But the Chinese didn’t rebel. The driver chiseled, probably making an extra $25. No one wanted to lose face making a scene with him. Everyone understood what was going on.

It was a minor inconvenience. I thought back to times in South America, where bus drivers would be in cahoots with armed bandits, pulling buses over at remote spots where everyone would be robbed.

Better to lose half an hour on a slow road than my possessions at gunpoint.

Comments

[Mike]

Nice story. Many years ago I picked up a friend at the Wuhan airport I was halfway into town before the driver told me the meter was broken. I then spent the rest of the trip arguing with driver how much I should pay. I had never had a problem until then over drivers using a meter, so it was basically a scam. The road between the airport and the town was also only used for the airport so there was no chance of getting out and getting another cab. It was my friends first experience in China.

[A B]

Well done --- you captured the problems of China:

- Officialdom being unreasonable, and the common people having no recourse but to break the law, which in turn weakens the rule of law.

- Pervasiveness of petty corruption by the Bus driver who pocketed the money.

The good news is, it is possible to wring these out of the system. It is impossible to eliminate corruption, but it is possible to push it higher and further behind the scenes.

This is a long process, and unless there is a powerful authority locally, the progress is going to be very uneven.

This post may be one of the best post you have done in a long time --- you captured the daily grind / frustration of the Chinese people in many places.

It is rare that these issues get cleaned up --- like in Singapore under Lee, and Hong kong in the more recent decades.

[shenqh]

15 years ago, when I own my first car in USA. I bought a used car and needed a inspection ticket before I could drive. I went to a small gorage. A mechanic there told me if I pay him $50 bucks, I could get my ticket without inpection. The insepction fee was about $10.

Just recently I found I was fooled by my agant on my whole life insurance. I ended up loss of $4000 on surrender charge after I paid off 8 years princples.

[shenqh]

A couple of years ago, I saw a ~$80 charge on my credit card which is 1000 mile away from my hom. Of couse, I didn't make that purchase. A couple of days later, I received an express mail, it said if I buy a protection for my credit card, I don't have to worry somebody else steal and use my card.

What a chain of scams!!! It is a crime.

[Bill]

Great post, highlighting the joy of living in China. Chinese are so acceptive to law breaking, either by themselves or others, while the officials learnt to ignore the situation other officials have created. That's harmony. Everything works, just not the way the rule book says.

I wonder how this is working in the stock market.

[shenqh]

My credit card incident occurred in New York.

[Pffefer]

Bill,

Are you still suffering in China or did you already make your self an ex-expat?

[The Angel Gabriel]

Bill's living conditions or citizenship status are not any of your business nor are they relevant to the topic of the article.

[Meter Reader]

The money the bus driver made from the toll money, probably was wasted in the extra gas he used to drive farther over the back rounds to avoid the toll.

[Sear4T]

There was an easy and obvious way to avoid the unpleasant experience for TJ.

He could have just offer the $25 or little less than 200 rmb out of his own to the divers in both incidents.

That's total of merely $50 and in all likelihood less than of TJ's daily meal allowances from McClatchy or an hour worth of shopping in the Silk Alley for TJ's family. For that additional "minor amounts of money" he could have emerged as an unlikely hero in the eyes of the poor drivers as well as fellow passengers, and who knows might single-handedly change the negative feeling of Chinese towards westerners these days.

But instead, he choose to write about it with his usual sarcastic flair. I guess that’s quite typical for western expats in China who have over time grown immune at personal level to the daily struggle of regular Chinese, even though they still feel compelled to write about it and share these “only-in-China”encounters with the world.

[Sear4T]

RE:"I thought back to times in South America, where bus drivers would be in cahoots with armed bandits, pulling buses over at remote spots where everyone would be robbed."

On a lighter note. If TJ had travelled with a typical Chinese tour group, he and his family would have similar experience. Only difference is the driver's stop would be at some "tourist trap" gift shops where everyone would be robbed if they buy anything. ;-)

[LaoLiao]

The possible reason that taxi driver did not want to take you was you had a short distance trip. Taxi drivers at airport usually need to wait 4-6 hours on line to pick up a passage. They definitely want to make enough money to cover the expense ($10-$20) in on trip. I usually paid them $5 tip and they were very happy. I grew up in China and I knew how tough the live was for those taxi driver.

[A B]

"He could have just offer the $25 or little less than 200 rmb out of his own to the divers

less than of TJ's daily meal allowances from McClatchy or a

emerged as an unlikely hero in the eyes of the poor drivers as well as fellow passengers"

Several points immediately arise from this.

A) Tim is not a crook.

He works with a formal expense system and he is doing his very best to abide by it.

Good faith compliance with the rules is not something that every American does all the time. Every society has its share of dishonest people.

Tim is making a good faith effort to comply though anyone who have experience in places like China (or Burma, or ...)would tell him that he is "nuts" to try to follow his employer's formal system in situations such as this.

It is those times that if he has a lot of "goodwill" derived from years of being straight and honest with the expense system, that little variances, especially involving little money, are allowed.

B) Tim Johnson's job is being a reporter.

He is there to REPORT, not to MAKE news.

Had he paid the "bribe" to the taxi / bus driver, he would be, in effect, MAKING NEWS rather than reporting news.

Sure, he might appear to be a hero, sure, there might be amazing PR benefits, but there is just as easily the downside that he is seen as another ugly American throwing his money around.

So I turn it around, and ask, shouldn't we admire Tim for having at least tried to see what life is like for Chinese, whose life, aspirations, and struggles he is trying to accurately, fairly, and honestly document?

Sear4T, if you really find Tim's coverage so objectionable, may I suggest you exercise the ultimate right ---- don't read this blog or Tim's publications.

[nanheyangrouchuan]

Bad, thieving China.

[wenzhou]

I thought A B's comments are great.

Sear4T was probably kidding. But in any case, TJ probably would have paid the $25 if he was the only passenger in the bus. Being in a crowd, however, people's psychology changes.

I agree with A B that this posts illustrates the typical problems that people suffer in China.

[A B]

@wenzhou,

There are many foreign reporters who have been in China for years who can't be bothered to report on issues like this.

Moreover, being based in the big, developed cities of China bias them toward not seeing how little progress has been made in the less wealthy, let alone rural areas of the country.

If you take the perspective that the Government has a constituency that is overwhelmingly dominated by cadres from those areas, then a lot of their priorities, such as on subsidizing daily necessities (electricity for people, not businesses, holding down the price of fuel and food, etc.) make very good sense even though it might create perverse problems elsewhere.

Responding to the needs and wishes of the majority is sometimes a characteristic ascribed to western style "democracies".

I have no doubt that if China held western style elections that were honestly held, it would produce political parties with much of the same policies as the present one.

The catch is, can China risk the potential for instability, the likelihood of producing genuinely bad governments, or worst, producing a government who is bent of eliminating the western style "democracy" the moment they are elected (like Hitler and the Nazi party did)?

These are the questions that hopefully some enterprising Western journalist can answer.

[shenqh]

Violating laws at low level in China is very common, I cannot defense that for China. On the other hand, I can list more than 10 pages about the similar cases in USA. The most common one is speed limit on high way, 65 mile (mostly). Eighty percent drives break that law.

[A B]

Violating laws at low levels is common everywhere.

Overt corruption by government and people, however, are less common.

For example, a policeman that ask you to pay a bribe instead of getting an official traffic ticket.

Or a business that advertise it has certain items on sale and then intentionally have none on hand and try to sell you something more expensive.

Like buying gasoline and not getting what you paid for both in terms of quantity and quality claimed.

Or the immigration officer that demands a bribe to stamp your passport....

The difference is in places where petty corruption has by and large ended, if a small percentage of people cheat, there is, a) a legal recourse, b) there are laws that can, and are enforced, c)there is an overwhelming sense of injustice and intolerance of such behavior by the average person in society.

Things were not always that way, and the best example you can see is how, in the United States, gasoline pumps until very recently were built with a "window" that showed you what was actually being pumped into your car.

Before that, gasoline pumps from the "majors" in the 1920s and 30s pumped fuel into a big, calibrated glass jar that not only showed you what was being pumped (i.e. is it clear, dirty, etc.) but also the precise quantity that is being delivered. They basically pumped it into the glass jar, then delivered the fuel from the jar to your tank.

The reason pumps had to do that is because of widespread cheating in the early parts of the 20th century, which gradually got wrung out of the system.

It is now fairly rare to have service stations in the US sell you adulterated gas or insufficient quantities. Though with fuel approaching $5 a gallon and likely to go to $15 a gallon in a few years, expect cheating to make a big comeback.

Precisely the same process of transformation is happening in China, and as people become wealthier, and less tolerant of cheating, things will gradually improve.

However, you will never rid any society of corruption --- it just gets pushed deeper and higher up the food chain.

[Search4T]

@A B:”These are the questions that hopefully some enterprising Western journalist can answer.”

Remember A B, they are there to ask questions. Not to provide answers. Otherwise they would run the risk of MAKING NEWS instead of REPORTING them.

BTW, I don’t consider TJ’s coverage objectionable. In fact, I found his blog entries quite entertaining as they do not seem to be subject to the same level of editorial review as his regular newspaper bound stories. Obviously, TJ's having a little fun stoking the fire by writing these entries, knowing full well that they will likely generate angry responses from FQs, and the ensuing shouting matches between China bashers and counter-bashers. So I guess I’ll just play along and have a little fun myself. But I try not to get carried away too much and pounce on every single entry or commet from TJ as well as his readers with page long essays.
After all, the subjects that these blog entries cover are more suitable for chatting over beer with your friends than any serious debate. Just my US$.02.

[shenqh]

"Overt corruption by government and people, however, are less common"

In China, the corruption occurs when the officals are in power, which makes them look bad. In west, officals harvest their money after they step down from power, which makes people think their voted governemnt officals are not overt corrupted. There is a kind of Auh Q mentality in western socity, they sit upon shit, but could smell it.

[shenqh]

In my previous post, he last sentence should be "but could not smell it"

[angry donut]

Search4T, what the heck is this distinction between MAKING NEWS and REPORTING NEWS? that's the silliest and most academic thing I've heard in a while. So if some lady is getting raped, you should just stand by and watch and report and let someone else step in to "MAKE NEWS"? Are we all robots now devoid of instinct and common sense? I didn't think that would happen for another 200 years.