The air is thick with cigarette smoke and profanity in Cantonese as six taxi drivers huddle around their red cabs like fire engines in a quiet corner of Hong Kong’s gritty Prince Edward neighborhood.
The afternoon is the handover, when the day shift drivers hand over their taxis to those working the night shift. They hand over wads of cash to the taxi agent, a matriarchal figure who collects the car rental, manages their schedule and dispenses unsolicited advice about exercising more and quitting smoking. The drivers wave at her.
Perhaps there is no more difficult task in this city of more than seven million inhabitants than trying to change the habits of taxi drivers. Often grumpy and rushing for the next fare, Hong Kong 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 fed up with being driven recklessly, treated with disdain and, in many cases, having to pay in cash – one of the strangest idiosyncrasies of life in Hong Kong. The practice is so ingrained that airport staff often have to warn tourists at taxi stands that they must carry receipts.
The government, partly because of complaints, partly because of the revitalization of tourism, tried to restrain taxi drivers. Officials campaigned over the summer urging drivers to be more courteous. They imposed a points system that would track bad driver behavior – such as overcharging or turning passengers away – which could result in the loss of driver’s licenses.
In early December, the government proposed requiring all taxis to install systems that would allow them to accept credit cards and digital payments by the end of 2025 and to add surveillance cameras by the end of 2026.
As expected, many taxi drivers opposed the idea of stricter supervision.
“Would you like to be followed 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 enacted, would mark the end of an era for an industry that has long been an anomaly in Hong Kong world class transportation rustling. Every day, millions of people travel safely to work on elegant subways and air-conditioned double-decker buses that run reliably.
Taking a taxi, by comparison, can be an adventure. Step into one of Hong Kong’s signature four-door Toyota Crown Comfort cabs and you’ll most likely be greeted by (what’s the opposite?) a man in his 60s or older with an array of cellphones lined up against his dashboard — sometimes used for GPS navigation and other times to track horse racing results. The amenities do not change. Wait for the gas pedal to be pressed.
Then you’ll reflexively grab the handle and try not to slide off the midnight blue vinyl seats as you hurtle and turn through the city’s notoriously narrow streets. Finally, before you reach your destination, you will prepare your small bills and coins to avoid aggravating the driver with a long exit.
“When you get a ride, you have to hurry,” said Sylvia He, a professor of urban studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, who, like many of the city’s residents, feels conditioned to walk on eggshells around taxi drivers. “I don’t want to delay their next order.”
For many taxi drivers, their impatience and rudeness are a reflection of their harsh reality: when they are navigating a business with diminishing financial rewards, there is no time to waste 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 take home about $2,500 a month, barely enough to survive in one of most expensive cities in the world.
“Some customers are too nice,” said Mr. Lau using a Cantonese word that means to cause trouble and annoy. “They like to complain about which way to go. They tell you to go faster.”
The fragile economy of the industry
Driving a taxi used to be a decent way to make a living. But the job has become more difficult, exacerbated by the effects of the economic slowdown in mainland China. The city has had trouble reviving its appeal with tourists, while its bars and nightclubs, once bustling with crowds crammed into narrow streets, now attract fewer visitors.
Even before the crash, some taxi license holders were in trouble. Taxi licenses are limited by the government and are traded in a loosely regulated market. Some owners suffered huge losses after a speculative bubble drove prices to nearly $1 million for a single license a decade ago and then burst.
Today, the licenses are worth about two-thirds of their high value a decade ago. Many companies and licensed drivers are more focused on recouping losses than improving service.
Tin Shing Motors, a family-owned company, manages drivers and sells taxi license mortgages and taxi insurance. Chris Chan, a 47-year-old third-generation member of the company, says Tin Shing is saddled with mortgages bought when the licenses were worth much more.
In order to solve this debt, Mr. Chan has to rent out his taxis as much as possible. But he struggles to find a driver. Many taxi drivers are old, and young people have mostly shied away from hard work. Profit margins have shrunk, he added, especially as insurance costs have nearly doubled in recent years. Uber, despite operating in a gray area in Hong Kong, has also taken away some customers.
“It’s getting harder and harder to make money,” said Mr. Chan.
At the bottom are drivers, about half of whom are 60 and older. Many cannot afford to retire. They have to make about $14 an hour to break even after paying for gas and their vehicle rental. For them, cash in hand is better than waiting days for electronic payments to be processed.
He is professionalizing the worker’s job
The tension between the public and taxi drivers is played out by pointing fingers at each other. When the government introduced a courtesy campaign last year, one driver told a television reporter that passengers were rude.
In many ways, Hong Kong taxi drivers embody the stressful, cut-throat culture of the city’s working class. Their gruffness is no different from the service you get at cha chaan teng, the ubiquitous local coffee shops that feed the masses with egg sandwiches, instant noodles and sweet milk sugar tea. Servers are sparse, but fast.
“People tend to have one bad experience and remember it for the rest of their lives,” said Hung Wing-tat, a retired professor who has studied the taxi industry. “As a result, the public is given the impression that all taxi drivers are bad when most of them just want to make a living.” They don’t want any problems.”
Indeed, there are taxi drivers like Joe Fong, 45, who sees no value in the hostility of 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 attached to his dashboard. He welcomes electronic payment and didn’t even raise an eyebrow when the 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 newer hybrid taxis made by Toyota, which look like a cross between a London taxi and a PT Cruiser. “The world has changed. You have to accept it.”
Olivia Wang contributed reporting.
