Today we decided to take the new bullet train from Beijing to TianJin, max speed 350 km/hr, total transit time 30 minutes. It’s been open for 6 days. It was a pretty awesome trip, had a great meal eating famous TianJin BaoZi (meat dumplings?). However, the best part about today so far was when we got back and got into our taxi and met our taxi driver; Yang Shifu (master).
This taxi driver was the most talkative driver we’ve met so far. He asked me where we were from. He thought at first we were people that lived and worked in Beijing. But I guess after a while, he changed his mind. He said the more the thought about it, the more it seemed like we weren’t natives. I said I was from Taiwan and that everyone else with me is from JiangSu.
Me being from Taiwan – really got this guy talking. He is actually heading to Taiwan soon for a vacation with his wife next month. He’s going for about a week. He talked about how he’s been to Macau, Hong Kong, and Tibet, but not yet Taiwan. “Since Taiwan is part of China,” he says, ”I have to go see it.”
We’re all pretty amazed. How does this taxi driver get to travel so much? First thing we asked though – was how was Tibet? We’re all interested in going, but worried about getting altitude sickness. So he goes on to say – well he was in the military in the 70s, so he keeps himself in great shape and had no problems. It’s about a 2 day train travel to Tibet, and maybe a couple of people did get sick, but not in a need to be hospitalized kind of sick.
Once he mentioned the military, air force to be precise in GangSu Province, he had to direct his attention to me. He talked about how he really wanted to attack Taiwan back in those days. “But now, there is no need,” he says, “I can go to Taiwan and see how it is for myself.” He said he wanted to meet the taxi drivers there, see how sanitary Taiwan is, and see if there is anything he can learn from them.
Since this driver was so talkative and friendly, we asked him about great places to eat in Beijing. This is where he told us that he wouldn’t know because he’s Muslim and he only eats at restaurants that he trusts. But he did mention quite a few great Muslim restaurants we can visit.
So we had to redirect the conversation back to his lifestyle – you can just tell this is one guy that knows how to enjoy life. His wife is a “Model-Worker” – I believe a big deal in Beijing. She’s in sales. His son is 23 and works for Bank of China. Him, he makes about 5-6000 RMB per month just being a taxi driver in Beijing. That’s after paying his company for the car, gas, and other expenses.
We asked him about where he lives, and he said he loves his house and it’s huge. (About 1100 square feet it sounds like, maybe small to most people in US, but not to this guy). He said he got to (zhan au yun guan) or “basked in the glory of Olympics”. He was part of the communities that were torn down for Olympics construction. He used to live in a traditional Chinese styled villa (si he yuan). The government tore it down and gave people like him reassignment to brand new homes. He states he loves it. He was so proud of it, he had to point it out when we drove by.
He boasted in a prideful kind of way about how the money he makes just goes to enjoying life, his house is paid off and he figures he doesn’t want to go to his grave regretting about this he never got to enjoy.
I loved this guy, I think we all enjoyed our time with him. It was a long trip back to our hotel, but I don’t believe anybody noticed the time. It was a refreshing point of view to meet someone like him after so many negative articles from the western media. We even told him that too. We said all we ever hear about is how there is no religious freedom, minorities are repressed (he’s part of a minority group that is traditionally Muslim), and how Beijing locals like him can’t possibly enjoy Olympics with his house taken away from him etc, etc. We said all this, and he was quick to refute all that. He said he loves how the government treats him and his family. He’s obviously an open Muslim all his life and he got to serve in the Air Force. He was so proud of being Chinese and living in Beijing. He boasted that Beijing was the best city in China and in the world. He talked about how plenty of his foreign customers says Beijing is even better than Paris, France.
Yang ShiFu – thank you for being such a joyful taxi driver. It really made our day. We all came back to the hotel hot and tired, but with a smile on our faces. He gave us a wonderful, refreshing view of Beijing people.
