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Tianjing: A 'taxi driver village'
By Wang Chao (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-03-19 08:06
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Everyday around breakfast time, hundreds of taxi drivers, mostly from Pinggu county, gather in Beigao to pass the car off to their partners, who will also drive it for 24 hours. ZOU HONG / CHINA DAILY |
They endure long hours and less contact with family in best job option available
Wang Jiale, a 6-year-old boy, crawled into his grandmother's arms and turned his head away from his dad, who was sitting at the other end of the couch.
"No, I don't miss my dad," said the boy.
The boy had not seen his dad for the last two days, which was normal. The lack of contact between the two was obviously having an effect.
Wang Wen, the father, smiled with embarrassment when he heard the boy's comment. Wang is a taxi driver from Tianjing village, in Pinggu county, about 64 km from downtown Beijing. Most of the villagers share the surname Wang.
Like other taxi drivers from suburban areas, Wang Wen works 24 hours per shift in his car, before passing it off to his partner, who will also drive it 24 hours.
This village has about 300 households and more than 100 of them have a man, or in a few cases a woman, in the family working as a taxi driver.
In this "taxi driver village", the people pushing strollers along the streets are mostly the children's grandparents. When asked where the parents are, the grandparents often reply they're out on shift.
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A taxi driver in Tianjing village, Pinggu county, waits for the shuttle bus, with his mother and son, to take him to Beigao so he can get his car and start his shift. ZOU HONG / CHINA DAILY |
The taxi drivers living in the village work for different companies, but their income is similar - about 5,000 yuan per month for each driver. But usually 3,000 yuan of this must be turned over to the taxi company.
"I only earn a little more than 2,000 yuan every month," Wang Wen said. "Not worth mentioning."
But his mother who was sitting beside him said she is quite proud of this salary.
"Before he started working as a taxi driver four years ago, he only earned a monthly income of 800 yuan as a private driver," she said.
Another woman in the village who appeared to be in her thirties and spoke on condition of anonymity agreed with Wang Wen's mother. The woman gestured to several big houses and said the better-off families in this village all have someone working as a taxi diver.
"You can tell from the look of their homes," she added.
An income of 2,000 yuan is barely enough to rent an apartment anywhere inside the third ring road, but goes much further in Pinggu.
Wang Wen's mother said villagers who are not taxi drivers are either involved in small businesses, such as transferring cargo by bicycle or pedicab, or work in peach orchards in other villages.
According to Xu Xueguang, a member of the Tianjing village committee, the average monthly income for non-taxi drivers in the village is only 400 to 500 yuan.
Tianjing doesn't have much arable land and there is no big factory to provide jobs. Even Pinggu peaches, the county specialty, which have made many Pinggu farmers rich in recent years, don't grow so well in the village. Before many villagers became taxi drivers, Tianjing residents were poorer than most villagers in neighboring districts or counties, let alone residents of downtown Beijing.
"At first only 10 villagers joined this profession, but when they became relatively rich people started realizing it was a good way to make money, so they joined too," said Wang Xuechun, one of the "first generation" of taxi drivers in Tianjing.
Every morning at around 8 am, the taxi drivers meet in front of the gate of a small village-owned kindergarten and take a bus to Beigao, part way between downtown Beijing and the village to pick up their cars from their partners. They take the bus to trade off the taxis in Beigao because the gas cost of driving a taxi back to Tianjing is roughly equivalent to a day's income. The next day at lunchtime the bus will drive them home. When the bus arrives in Beigao there are usually 700 to 800 taxis parked in the area, most from Pinggu.
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According to Zhou, taxi companies in Beijing won't grant taxi licenses to drivers who drive their own cars. To get involved in the taxi business, most drivers must pay a considerable deposit and then agree to turn over more than half of their revenue to the taxi companies.
"This monopoly that the taxi companies hold is what we need to break, if we want to change this situation." Zhou said.
