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I know I'm a tosser....

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Lordlunchalot

SuperStar

Joined: Apr 23, 2007
Posts: 1379

Status: Offline

Posted: Oct 21, 2007 - 03:09 AM
Post subject: I know I'm a tosser....

My Mandarin is useless and I could likely fix this on the spot if only I had a few good abusive phrases up my sleave, but still.
I get in a cab at the Shangri-la on my way to Volar. Privelaged, I know, and I'm sure the driver thought as much. My Mandarin is enough that I understood that the Valet at Shangri-la told him to take the Fuxing tunnel. Driver however took the Nanpu bridge, I'm in the back trying to communicate that this is not the best way.
I wrote down his number and kept the fa piao, I have an excellent girl in the office that will follow this up for for me. Again, I realise what a tosser I am being about this but it is not about the money, cabs are dirt cheap here.
What really f****s me off is he just ignored me like I didn't know any better 'Take the whitey for all he's worth' attitude. Am I being pathetic stomping around around like a drunken two year old, or should I get one my local girls to bust some ass?

sienna
Low Seater

Joined: July 17, 2006
Posts: 3440
Location: kiss my ass

Posted: Oct 21, 2007 - 03:45 AM

yes, bust him.

and baby, volar is both out and overrated

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Lordlunchalot

SuperStar

Joined: Apr 23, 2007
Posts: 1379

Status: Offline

Posted: Oct 21, 2007 - 04:21 AM

Is it wise to use to use someone in Sweden to judge where is out & overrated? I arrived at Volar in a monkey suit and I met quite a few people who had never met an Aussie in black tie, we are not all heathens I hope you realise.

CoffeeHawk_0
Board Buddha

Joined: July 14, 2005
Posts: 14444

Posted: Oct 21, 2007 - 08:38 AM

just say "wo yao Fuxing sweedao, Nanpu bu hao" firmly.
I don't know how to say bridge, and if you say 'sweedao' really fast it will sound like you know how to say 'tunnel' in Mandarin - 'sweedao' is the English phoenetical spelling of something close to 'tunnel' in Mandarin Smile

I've had taxi drivers try to use the Nanpu bridge to get to Nanjing Xi Lu, the pricks, and I'm close to ShangriLa too.
There are times in the morning and evening when taxis can not use the YanAn tunnel, but the Fuxing tunnel is always open for taxis.

That_Chinese_Girl
Veejay
Veejay

Joined: Oct 08, 2007
Posts: 2039

Posted: Oct 21, 2007 - 11:39 AM

Bridge is "qiao" in Mandarin. So, you should say "Bu yao zou nan bu qiao." 不要走南浦桥 (Don't take Nanpu bridge). If he ignores you, raise your voice and say "Wo yao tou su ni." 我要投诉你. (I'm going to file a claim about you.).
And yes, you should get someone to complain about him. It's not about the money. It's his attitude. I always use Shanghainese when I take the cab because some drivers take advantage of outsiders (meaning, Mandarin speakers from other parts of China).

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That_Chinese_Girl
Veejay
Veejay

Joined: Oct 08, 2007
Posts: 2039

Posted: Oct 21, 2007 - 12:23 PM

On a second thought, two Chinese sayings came to mind. The first one is 得饶人处且饶人 (de rao ren chu qie rao ren). It means try to forgive others whenever you can. You are a million times more privileged than he is. He is just a taxi driver, which probably means he is not well educated. I can understand his jealousy towards you. Don’t let a person who isn’t even worth your time bother you. It’s a pretty stressful job driving a cab in Shanghai… and great customer service isn’t what Shanghai is known for. Many times I am really angry at the moment of the incident and want to complain. But then, when I get home and cool off, I realize how insignificant that was in the grand scheme of things. There are more important things that I should treasure and care about. So, the second saying is 退一步，海阔天空 (tui yi bu, hai kuo tian kong). The literal translation is “Take one step back, and the sky will open up.” Forgiving others is setting yourself free.

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Magnolia
Board Biatch

Joined: June 01, 2004
Posts: 31083

Posted: Oct 21, 2007 - 12:32 PM

Unless you were aware of a serous detour or even if the driver didn't listen, i would probably ask directly the receipt at the end of the fare, with the silent implication that you will report him. Unless somehting HORRID had happned, I would never bothre reporting him. The threat usually does enough.

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DesertSpider
Post Roaster

Joined: Jan 19, 2007
Posts: 4417
Location: SHANGHAI, CHINA

Posted: Oct 21, 2007 - 12:52 PM

Cabs have tried to do that to me, I calculate a fair price based on the direction I wanted them to go and give them that and that alone. I get a receipt for the drive first. And when the cab driver starts waving his hand back and forth saying, no, I say: Bu yao rao lu [don't drive me around]... now f'k off and just exit and leave.

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dhcp

Raver

Joined: Aug 04, 2007
Posts: 386
Location: Behind you!!!
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Posted: Oct 21, 2007 - 11:10 PM
Post subject: Re: I know I'm a tosser....

Lordlunchalot wrote:

I know I'm a tosser ....

Damn ......... another misleading thread title ..... I thought this was going to be a discussion on techniques for tossing ..... salad .....

You just got unlucky .... my worst experience is a toss up between (1) a driver telling me to get out - but it was actually the wrong hotel ..... or (2) waiting for 8.6 years for a taxi in the rain, then I manage to step in - only to be told to get out coz he didn't know the place ...... or (3) knowing that I'm going to be late for a meeting and only have 30-35mins for the commute, I get a taxi instead of walking/metro and the trip which usually takes 25mins ends up being 55mins .... would have got their faster by walking/metro .....needless to say I was late .....

But good experiences (1) taxi driver taking a wrong turn (house/office numbers were getting bigger not smaller), so he turns off the meter and stops charging me until we get to the place or (2) getting in a taxi and showing him on a map where I want to go ... only to be told that it's around the corner and I can walk there in 5 mins..... both of these happened today!!!!

So kids, the moral of the story is - eat your vegetables and use 2-ply to wipe....... also like all things in the world, it's proportional/percentage based .... you were unlucky, you might not face the same problem again for another 8.6 million years .... or you could face it again tomorrow ... so you gotta ask yourself .... are ya feelin lucky .... punk .... well? are ya? Wink

babebibobu

LoopKicker

Joined: Sep 29, 2007
Posts: 946

Status: Offline

Posted: Oct 21, 2007 - 11:22 PM

I think you all got it wrong. I doubt the driver was trying to cheat you. He made the best decision using his Chinese logic, thats all. Shanghainese drivers tend to be honest, though most people here do have reasoning problems. Anyway I would trust a Chinese driver, they have always been very fair with me. I can't say the same of Aussie businessmen.

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ULNBcn

Barker

Joined: June 04, 2007
Posts: 166
Location: Shanghai
Status: Offline

Posted: Oct 21, 2007 - 11:58 PM

^ I agree. I see all the time posts in this forum complaining about taxi drivers, and I never understand how is it possible that after almost 2 years taking taxis in China I never felt cheated. Sure there must be some dishonest drivers, but not possibly so many.

I think most of the times it is a communication problem, I mean, what if the guy actually thought that it was better to go down that way for whichever reason, how could he have explained it to you? What if he is just too shy/scared/impressed of having a foreigner in his back seat?

Don´t report if you are not 100% sure he was cheating. And if you are, just think if you have never cheated in your life, before you be so harsh to small uneducated cheaters.

dhcp

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Joined: Aug 04, 2007
Posts: 386
Location: Behind you!!!
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Posted: Oct 22, 2007 - 12:30 AM

^ and ^^, yeah - don't report it if you're not 100% sure - as he prob dusted you off as he didn't understand, I also have never felt cheated, my worst experiences were mainly due to miscommunication (most probably on my part) ....

yingying236

Wonder Wit

Joined: Aug 13, 2006
Posts: 3832

Status: Offline

Posted: Oct 22, 2007 - 12:34 AM

sienna wrote:

yes, bust him.

and baby, volar is both out and overrated

i like volar... drinks are too expensive though. But one of my good friends does pr for them from time to time... so i would be able to get on the guestlist and in for free. Sometimes they had some really good events. but i wouldnt go there if it was just one of their ordinary nights. Id rather go to Volar then Attica.

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yingying236

Wonder Wit

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Posted: Oct 22, 2007 - 12:36 AM

also whenever i went from pudong to puxi i would always take the nanpuqiao. imo its much better.

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MyNameIsPablo

StreetBeater

Joined: Sep 06, 2007
Posts: 2455

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Posted: Oct 22, 2007 - 01:25 AM

I have never had a problem with taxi drivers in Shanghai, although they may have encountered a problem with me once or twice.

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sienna
Low Seater

Joined: July 17, 2006
Posts: 3440
Location: kiss my ass

Posted: Oct 22, 2007 - 02:00 AM

yingying236 wrote:

sienna wrote:

yes, bust him.

and baby, volar is both out and overrated

first time i was in volar was with u, second time was with swedes and taiwanese who bought us free drinks, third time was hawaii party, potentially very good night but i was with a swede so it was quite boring.

btw, whats the hype with volar, can you get into the club if you pay the 150rmb in entry

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pixelpunter

StreetBeater

Joined: Sep 15, 2005
Posts: 2199

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Posted: Oct 22, 2007 - 08:09 AM

In all the time I lived in Shanghai I only had one bad experience with a taxi driver and that was right after I had moved there, his meter was definitely ticking over way too fast making a rmb10 cab ride into a rmb 20 cab ride and there was no added traffic or detours etc. to explain the discrepancy, so yes, it does happen, but that was one incident out of a hundreds in which the driver's did a really good job. Sometimes they would take a wrong turn which was frustrating, but I genuinely believed that they thought they were going the best possible route. A lot of these taxi driver's have only been in the city for a short while and don't even really know where they are going themselves, so it's understandable that they could make mistakes, others might know that a road is experiencing gridlock traffic at a certain time of day (information which you may not be privy to) and think that going another route would be faster, which is seldom is, but I do believe that they are mostly honest.

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janlynn
Wonder Wit

Joined: July 19, 2005
Posts: 3593

Posted: Oct 22, 2007 - 10:08 AM

I did have a friend who was charged 400 rmb from the airport to jinmao

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TheMasterofDisaster

SuperStar

Joined: Aug 31, 2007
Posts: 1355

Status: Offline

Posted: Oct 28, 2007 - 01:47 PM

it helps if ur drunk but go ape-smit, bang on the plastic thing , reach around. make it obvious u want to kill him, and dont fake it.

if ur wrong, whats the harm? he knows not to f with u

Lordlunchalot

SuperStar

Joined: Apr 23, 2007
Posts: 1379

Status: Offline

Posted: Oct 28, 2007 - 02:07 PM

I've been here close to two years. 98% of the time the taxis are great. I have had a couple of taxis involved in crashes where I was not too happy that they still wanted to be paid. Also had 3 in that time that took obviously long routes to build up the fare, not bad all things considered. I realise that many drivers are not from Shanghai and that I must be near impossable to understand.
What annoyed me about the fare I brought up in the OP is that the Valet at Shangri-la had told him to take fuxing tunnel and I repeated the demand numerous times. In the end I did not make a complaint, I was all fired up when I did the OP, but by the next day with the alcohol out of my system it hardly seems worth it all over mabye a 20 kuai difference.
If I let every little incident in China get to me I would be a shaking little ball hiding in the corner by now. I do find this forum a good way to let a bit of steam off now & then in a manner that does harm to no one.

TheMasterofDisaster

SuperStar

Joined: Aug 31, 2007
Posts: 1355

Status: Offline

Posted: Oct 28, 2007 - 02:30 PM

^ dont sweat it, i just did a little ballistic trick. some kerkoffs for the second day in a row, pumping out "ey ey ey ey" as a mic test for some concert all day yesterday and trying the same smit 2day.

i found them , went ballistic and all is quiet. 5000 students can study and sleep in peace.

if i had been polite. i wud still be listening to 2000 decibels of microphone tests all day every day
lifes tough.

That_Chinese_Girl
Veejay
Veejay

Joined: Oct 08, 2007
Posts: 2039

Posted: Oct 28, 2007 - 05:51 PM

Lordlunchalot wrote:

If I let every little incident in China get to me I would be a shaking little ball hiding in the corner by now.

You mean you would be shaking a little ball, or perhaps two little balls? Wink

Anyway, glad to hear that everything worked out fine. Cool

Andreas
Board Royalty

Joined: Feb 27, 2004
Posts: 6413
Location: 31 N 121 E

Posted: Oct 28, 2007 - 07:16 PM

janlynn wrote:

I did have a friend who was charged 400 rmb from the airport to jinmao

That's no problem, as long as it is from Hangzhou airport.

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SherBo

LoopKicker

Joined: Oct 12, 2007
Posts: 808

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Posted: Oct 29, 2007 - 10:01 AM
Post subject: Re: I know I'm a tosser....

Lordlunchalot wrote:

someday I will tell you how I got ripped off by a hot air balloon operator, by the great barrier reef...

my office is Near the Temple on Nanjine Rd....I laugh when I watch Taxi drivers take me around in circles....the same thing happens in New York all the time...THe Doorman will tell the Taxi Driver which Bridge or Tunnel to take to the Airport, and they doon't ever take what he tells them..Only in New York you don't have a chance to talk to your taxi driver unless you speak whatever people from Pakistan speak...but I think you should bust his ass until it cracks