The air is thick with cigarette smoke and Cantonese profanities as half a dozen taxi drivers hang out near their fire-engine red cabs in a quiet corner of Hong Kong’s grimy Prince Edward district.
It’s the transfer of power in the afternoon, when daytime drivers hand over their taxis to those who work at night. They hand wads of cash to a taxi agent, a matriarchal figure who collects vehicle rent, manages their schedules and gives unsolicited advice to exercise more and quit smoking. The drivers wave him off.
There is perhaps no more difficult task in this city of more than seven million people than trying to change a taxi driver’s habits. Often grumpy and eager to find the next fare, Hong Kong’s taxi drivers have been doing things their own way for decades, reflecting the fast-paced, frenetic culture that has long energized the city.
But taxi drivers are under pressure to keep up with the times. Their passengers are tired of being driven recklessly, treated harshly and, in many cases, having to pay for their tickets in cash – one of the strangest features of life in Hong Kong. This practice is so entrenched that airport staff often have to alert tourists at taxi ranks that they must carry bills.
The government, both because of complaints and to revitalize tourism, has tried to rein in taxi drivers. Authorities ran a campaign this summer to urge drivers to be more polite. They imposed a points system in which bad behavior by drivers – such as overcharging or refusing passengers – would be tracked and could result in loss of license.
In early December, the government proposed requiring all taxis to install systems allowing them to accept credit cards and digital payments by the end of 2025, and to add surveillance cameras by the end of 2026.
Predictably, many taxi drivers opposed the idea of closer monitoring.
“Would you like to be watched all the time?” said Lau Bing-kwan, a 75-year-old taxi driver with thinning white hair who only accepts cash. “The government is barking too many orders.”
Hold on to your seats
The new controls, if implemented, would mark the end of an era for an industry that has long been an anomaly in Hong Kong. world-class transportation system. Every day, millions of people travel safely on sleek subways and air-conditioned double-decker buses that operate reliably.
In comparison, taking a taxi can be an adventure. Climb into one of Hong Kong’s iconic four-door Toyota Crown Comfort cabins and you will most likely be (what’s the opposite of greeted?) greeted by a man in his sixties or older with a phalanx of mounted cell phones along its dashboard – sometimes used for GPS navigation and other timetables to track horse racing results. Pleasantries will not be exchanged. Expect the gas pedal to be on the floor.
You’ll then reflexively grab a handle and try not to slide off the midnight blue vinyl seats as you dart and turn through the city’s notoriously narrow streets. Finally, before arriving at your destination, you will prepare your small notes and coins to avoid annoying the driver with a tedious exit.
“When they drop you off, you have to rush,” said Sylvia He, a professor of urban studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who, like many residents of that city, feels conditioned to walk on eggshells around ‘a taxi. “I don’t want to delay their next order.”
For many taxi drivers, impatience and brusqueness reflect their harsh reality: when getting by in a business with diminishing financial rewards, time should not be wasted on social niceties. Lau Man-hung, a 63-year-old driver, for example, skips meals and bathroom breaks just to stay behind the wheel long enough to earn about $2,500 a month, barely enough to get by in one of the the most expensive cities in the world.
“Some customers are too mafan,” Mr. Lau said, using a Cantonese word that means causing trouble and trouble. “They like to complain about the way forward. They tell you to go faster.
The fragile economy of an industry
Driving a taxi used to be a decent way to make a living. But business has become more difficult, compounded by the consequences of mainland China’s economic slowdown. The city is struggling to regain its appeal to tourists, while its bars and nightclubs, once packed with crowds packed into narrow streets, now attract fewer revelers.
Even before the crisis, some taxi license owners were struggling. Taxi licenses are restricted by the government and traded in a loosely regulated market. Some owners suffered huge losses after a speculative bubble pushed license prices to nearly $1 million a decade ago and then burst.
Today, the value of licenses is about two-thirds of their peak value a decade ago. Many companies and licensed drivers focus more on recovering losses than improving service.
Tin Shing Motors, a family-owned business, manages drivers and sells mortgages for taxi licenses and insurance for taxis. Chris Chan, 47, a third-generation member of the company, says Tin Shing is saddled with mortgages purchased when the licenses were worth much more.
To reduce this debt, Mr Chan must lease his taxis as much as possible. But he struggles to find drivers. Many taxi drivers have aged, and young people have largely stayed away from the backbreaking work. Profit margins have been shrinking, he added, especially with the cost of insurance nearly doubling in recent years. Uber, although operating in a gray area in Hong Kong, has also withdrawn some of its customer base.
“It’s getting harder and harder to make money,” Mr. Chan said.
At the bottom are the drivers, about half of whom are 60 and older. Many cannot afford to retire. They need to make about $14 an hour to break even after paying for gas and vehicle rent. For them, having cash on hand is better than waiting days for electronic payments to clear.
A blue-collar job becomes more professional
The tension between the public and the taxi drivers manifests itself in mutual accusations. When the government launched the courtesy campaign last year, one driver told a television reporter that it was the passengers who were being rude.
In many ways, Hong Kong’s taxi drivers embody the city’s high-stress, no-nonsense working-class culture. Their gruff character is no different from the service one receives at cha chaan teng, those ubiquitous local cafes that feed the masses with egg sandwiches, instant noodles and sweet milk tea. The servers are brief, but fast.
“People tend to have a bad experience and remember it for the rest of their lives,” said Hung Wing-tat, a retired professor who studied the taxi industry. “As a result, public opinion has the impression that all taxi drivers are bad, while most of them just want to earn a living. They don’t want any problems.
Indeed, there are taxi drivers like Joe Fong, 45, who sees no point in upsetting his customers and has tried to adapt to the needs of his passengers.
“Why fight?” » said Mr. Fong. “We need each other. You need transportation and I need your money.
Mr. Fong maximizes his income by splitting his time between driving a private car for Uber and a taxi for a taxi fleet called Alliance. Mr. Fong has five cell phones mounted on his dashboard. He welcomes electronic payments and didn’t raise an eyebrow when Alliance installed cameras in all its taxis last year.
“I’m not like those old guys,” said Mr Fong, who drives one of Hong Kong’s new hybrid taxis made by Toyota, which looks like a cross between a London taxi and a PT Cruiser. “The world has changed. You have to accept it. »
Olivia Wang reports contributed.
