Start fight against corruption from daily life events

Ask any experienced driver in Beijing about the ways to save parking fees, which have gone up several times in the past few years, and he or she will teach you how to negotiate the rates with parking fee collectors, giving an insight into one of the crudest and most common forms of corruption in our daily life.

Every day, in the roadside parking lots in my downtown neighborhood, drivers haggle with fee collectors despite official rates being displayed on the notice boards overhead. Most times they strike a win-win deal, as drivers pay less by forfeiting receipts, which allows the collectors to pocket the money.

The city's parking sector usually employs migrant workers, including many from rural areas, because urban residents shun the low-paying, menial and stressful job. Higher up in the chain of corruption that cashes in on the Chinese passion for owning a set of wheels are people with connections who help drivers cheat the system by providing services such as fixing penalty points or obtaining a coveted license plate without participating in a public lottery, which, like higher parking fees, has been instituted to curb traffic jams and pollution.