"Turn around!" I ordered the driver, as we rushed back to where we came from. As we approached the square, I saw my phone – it was just laying on one of the steps, unmolested:
Unfortunately, there's no place to stop - this is a busy section of the road with thru traffic, and the closest place to park was probably at least a few minutes away. Furthermore, there was a police car right behind us, watching. Things looked difficult, but I remained undeterred.
With the car still moving, I jumped out, the car door still open:
After I rushed over and secured the phone, I ran back to the taxi and jumped back in before it could get too much further. Operation Retrieval was successful!
We had the driver take us all the way to where Larry was. Still pumped from the adrenaline of my recent adventure, I decided to take a couple pictures to help recreate the scene (see pictures from above). The phone lying on the step was easy, but the open door to the taxi? That seemed to be a bit trickier. After all, it seems irresponsible to call a taxi over, open its door, and take a picture of it, all without actually riding or paying the taxi driver.
And so I decided to pay - 1 RMB. I wave a cab over. He comes by, and I open the back seat. The driver is a young man.
"Sir, have 1 RMB!" I reached out my hand and offered him a 1 RMB bill, taking a picture at the same time:
Taxi #1:
"Huh?" He was clearly confused. It isn't everyday people open cab doors and offer you money.
"I just want to give you an RMB."
"No, I don't make money like this - I'm an honest man, just trying to make an honest living. Where do you want to go? Tell me and I will take you there."
"I don't need to go anywhere - but why don't you have an RMB!"
He still refuses. I leave the bill on his back seat, but he grabs it and tosses it out the passenger window, and then drives off.
I was bemused - I had assumed people would just take money offered to them, but clearly that was not the case. Having lost nothing after I retrieved my 1 RMB bill, I decided this was actually a very interesting experiment that was worth running.
And so I hailed another cab. This time, the driver was a middle-aged man.
Taxi #2:
"Sir, have 1 RMB!" I reached out and extended the bill to him as well. He looked amused.
“Alright, why not!” he responded, and took my money. I closed his door and he drove off.
He took my money, I took a picture of him, and he drove off. Ah, back to normalcy, I thought.
However, I was wrong. I flagged down a 3rd taxi.
Taxi #3:
I offered him 1 RMB as well, but this young man did not take.
Taxi #4:
This was another middle-aged driver, and he refused as well. I then flagged down another:
Taxi #5:
"Hello, would you like 1 RMB?" I asked. The lady looked at me funny. Then she went on a tirade.
"I'm a cab driver! I don't make money like this! Who do you take me for??" It was as if I had insulted her occupation. She drove off in a huff.
Finally, I waved down the sixth cab driver. He looked to be a guy in his thirties:
Taxi #6:
“Today is your lucky day! Here is a kuai (i.e. 1 RMB)!”
"Whaa?" He seemed totally bewildered at first.
"I said today's your lucky day. Have a Reminbi."
"Huh?" He still didn't get it and seemed even more perplexed.
"Don't worry about a thing. I just want to give you 1 RMB. Why don't you take it?"
The man seemed to partially regain his senses. I suppose cab drivers usually are on auto-pilot and need a bit of time to adjust to an out of the ordinary passenger pickup routine such as this. After a few more moments of thought, he shrugged, and took the bill.
"Thanks," he said. I closed the door and he drove off.
2 of 6 drivers took the money. The sample size is rather small, no controls were ran, and no standard scripts were used, so it is difficult to draw any hard conclusions, but Maoxian (茂縣) seems to be a fairly upstanding place. Looking a bit deeper at the preliminary data, and combining it with some simple intuition, it also seems that the younger drivers tend to be more idealistic and would refuse taking in "free" money out of principle, whereas the two drivers that did take money were older drivers, with probably more realist viewpoints. Given their socioeconomic condition (after all, Maoxian cabs have just about the lowest fares of anywhere I've been - 3 RMB for the first kilometer, and 1 RMB for each half kilometer afterwards), they would gladly take every RMB that was offered to them.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment