Memorable Cruise Through Metropolis in
Taxi
By Kim Ki-tae
In Martin Scorsese's film, ``Taxi Driver,'' Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) is a night-shift taxi driver in a sleazy area of New York. He observes a world through his window every night and finds himself loathing the city.
The city seems just too corrupt and he decides to get rid of all the scum and evil in it.
In a book titled, ``I'm a taxi driver in Paris,'' author Hong Se-hwa contacts the foreign culture and learns the meaning of tolerance from his position at the wheel. Hong's taxi becomes a classroom for the political refugee to take lessons about the alien culture he is in.
What about the taxi drivers in Seoul? How do they feel about their close look at the metropolis and what does it mean to be a taxi driver in this city? The Korea Times popped in the front seat of taxi driver Kim Won Shik's cab and observed the goings-on from 7 p.m. on Friday to 2 a.m. on Saturday.
``The peculiarity of this job is that you come in contact with all kinds of people. We need to have a knack for recognizing who the clients are, what they do, and where they want to go before and immediately after they ride in the taxi,'' Kim said on the way to Ahyon subway station at 7 p.m.
During the busy commuting hours, most people use public transport, so taxi drivers largely target businessmen coming out of subway stations who are too tired to walk home or wait for a medium-sized bus.
This strategy did not work for Kim this time and he decided to move on instead of just waiting. ``There are two types of cab drivers. The ones who prefer waiting in the terminal or `Yok' in Korean, or the airport, `Konghang' in Korean. They are nicknamed `Yokbari,'and `Hangbari' among us taxi drivers. The other types, which includes me, prefer to keep moving in search for customers,''he explained.
Near Ahyon station, there is an affluent area, but the savvy taxi driver chose not to drive there, because ``there is usually little demand for taxis in an affluent district. You can imagine why. In relatively poor areas, taxis are popular because people don't have cars.''
Kim headed for Chungjong-no and saw one young man waving at him. The client, Park, who has two shops, uses taxis quite often even though he has a car because driving is too stressful. The only complaint he has about taxis is that it is too difficult to stop one in the night, especially around midnight.
``There are about 43,000 self-employed taxis and 23,000 company taxis in Seoul. The number of taxis is not small, but compared with the daytime, the demand for taxis around midnight is just too high,'' said Kim.
To meet the escalating demand for taxis after sunset, the government recently allowed taxi drivers on holiday to drive in the evenings. The exception met with partial success.
Kim gave an example of how government policies affect the taxi drivers, ``Until last summer we had to pay 200 thousand won in fines if we didn't wear a necktie while driving a taxi. There are still a lot of regulations that need to be changed.''
In terms of demand, taxi drivers are busiest on Fridays. And among the seasons, there are more people who take taxis during winter, especially at the end of the year.
``These are times when drivers are pinpointed for dangerous driving, including speeding. They are also accused of rejecting people who want to hire them and, packing two or three clients or groups of clients in their cabs,'' Kim noted.
Kim's opinion of these frequent complaints is a bit different from the general one. ``Self-employed drivers are completely to blame for these irregularities. They are earning reasonable amounts of money and don't have any reason whatsoever to be violators of any rules except greed. In the case of company taxi drivers, their working conditions are bad and they have to struggle to guarantee their earnings. They have to pay little less than 80 thousand won whenever they come back from the street,'' commented Kim on the way to Malli-dong hill with another customer.
Kim was a company taxi driver for eight years and took his own wheel in 1980. ``We veteran drivers have often job-related illnesses _ ruptured disks, piles, digestive and excretory disorders.'' Why digestive and excretory disorders? ``Take a guess. If there are clients on the backseat, or if there is row of them waiting, when do drivers get time to relax or visit a restaurant or go to the toilet?''
Since taxi drivers wander all over the city, they meet quite a lot of people. As a result, they tend to have memories, sweet or bitter, of each spot in the city. Passing by one famous hotel in Kangnam-gu, Kim recalls three intimidating-looking thugs carrying knives for cutting raw fish wrapped up in newspapers. ``It was scary and I drove very carefully. They said their knives were not for me, but for the rival gang at the end of their ride. And they did give me the fare.''
Another place brings up another memory. ``Recently one guest kept checking if there were any police check-points ahead and reporting it to somebody with his cellular phone. Later I figured out that his drunken friend's car was following my taxi by a few hundred meters.''
Asked if he ever had difficulty in catering for foreign guests, he said, ``I meet foreigners very often and recently there have been quite a few who speak Korean pretty well. Even the ones who don't speak Korean know a few basic words. In the case of foreigners who could not speak a single Korean word, I still manage to drive them to their destination.''
As night fell over the city, fluorescent signs decorating the facade of buildings lit up and streams of would-be drinkers flooded the streets near Kangnam subway station.
``From around 10 o'clock, most customers are from bars or soju tables.
There is a kind of timetable on the types of clients,''Kim said.
According to him, from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. his customers are usually commuters and after that, there are predominantly housewives until lunchtime. In the afternoons, businessmen often use taxis for work-related traveling and around the dinnertime, people in pursuit of merrymaking abound. Around midnight, some people are on their way to work in places such as Namdaemun and Tongdaemun markets.
``Knowing these patterns, we taxi drivers know where and when we are needed,'' said Kim.
In Hwayangni, one guest got on the taxi and in a few minutes fell asleep on the seat. Upon arriving at the destination in Tonam-dong, Kim tried to wake him up by saying ``sonnim'' a couple of times, which means guest in Korean. He finally came to. ``This is not very bad because he just woke up at my call. There are some people who sleep like the dead because they are drunk. To make it even worse, I have to think, what if a drunk man vomits on seats?''
Driving past the neon signs of a high street in Anam-dong around midnight, the veteran taxi driver said. ``I don't know exactly what is wrong with us, but driving around the city, I feel that too many people are just given to pursuing temporary pleasures. Amusement quarters have sprung up all over the city. I wonder if all this is right.''
``Sometimes people say they don't have money and ask for my bank account number, promising that they will put the fare in my account. But very few of them actually send the money, which is a pity. I try to believe that my next customer will be someone who belongs to that small group,'' he added on the way to central, Seoul.
Day in the life of Kim Won-shik
Starting time: 7:30 a.m.
Finishing time: 2:00 a.m.
Breaks: rest for four hours during lunchtime
Driving distance: 204.9km
Driving distance with customers in the taxi: 135.0km
The number of customers or groups of customers: 31
Earnings for Friday, the busiest day: 114,300 won
10 worst types of clients chosen by taxi drivers
1. Drunks - During the winter, many drunk customers fall asleep in the taxi and don't wake up. Some even lose lost consciousness but the worst are the ones who vomit in the cab.
2. Runners: Taxi drivers meet this kind of customer at least once a year.
Upon arriving at their destination, they jump out of the car and run away without paying the fare. Sometimes, they claim that they don't have the money and will fetch it from their home but then fail to come back.
3. Alley-dwellers: They make drivers drive into mazes of narrow byways far from the open road instead of walking home. Sometimes drivers end up getting lost.
4. Negotiators: Upon arriving at their destinations, some insist without evidence that the driver took detours in order to wrangle extra money. Most drivers will admit that a few drivers do that but the vast majority does not. Frequently, they end up begging the drivers to give them a discount.
5. Violent types: Some people decide to take out their pent up frustration on taxi drivers without provocation. They glare at, threaten and verbally abuse them. Occasionally, some drivers are even beaten, for no apparent reason, by these disturbed types.
6. Robbers: These are the worst of them all. Some robbers think drivers are vulnerable because they are in enclosed spaces. They think that a taxi driver must have a lot of money when this is not actually the case.
7. Sexual predators: Taxi drivers are easy targets for those who don't lead sexually satisfying lives. They regard drivers as easy game because of the small distance they have to reach across to access their prey. These hunters may be of any sexual orientation.
8. The arrogant: Some people think taxi drivers are under-educated or ignorant, but expect drivers to know all the city roads like the back of their hands.
9. The misguided honest: Sometimes there are customers who really are out of money but insist on compensating the driver for their loss with goods such as bootleg CDs or dried fish.
10. Traffic rule violators: They goad drivers into violating traffic regulations in their favor, especially when they are in a hurry. Some pretend not to know the rules and blame the drivers for delaying them.
Tips on getting a taxi ride
Waiting for a taxi for more than thirty minutes, especially in the chilly winter months, is agonizing. The following are a few tips by taxi drivers to enable you to get home as soon as possible.
Firstly, you need to stand where taxi drivers can see you clearly.
Maintain a clear distance from illegally parked cars on the street and don't stand on a pedestrian crossing. Drivers may think that you are simply waiting to cross the street and choose not to stop for you. Once it's dark, stand in a well-lit spot where you can be seen rather than in an unlit area where people in cars cannot see you.
If you are in an area between downtown and a suburb at night and want to go to a suburban area, you should probably try to catch a taxi heading in the opposite direction of your destination. At nighttime, taxis are usually carrying people to their homes in the suburbs so most of the ones passing you by are probably full. On the other hand, taxis heading in the opposite direction are empty so the best option is to cross the street and stop one of those and then change the direction. This is likely to get you home much sooner. This little trick can also be applied in the mornings but the other way around.
kt-kim@koreatimes.co.kr