Monday, March 29, 2004
Taxi
(I never did see that movie...)
I usually depend on public transit, but on occasion find the need to taxi it. Now, in Egypt as a foreigner and where there are no meters, you had to learn to find out how much to pay from point A to point B ahead of time from trustworthy friends. When you got to your location, you'd get out of the taxi, hand the money through the window and start walking, preferably in the opposite direction from the way the taxi was headed, just in case he was going to try to cause problems. There were taxi drivers that would immediately declare an outrageous price, inflating the cost some 300%, thinking I was a tourist and didn't know any better. I hated that and always got out of the taxi, refusing to be ripped off.
Here, there are meters in the taxis (though some seem to run a bit faster than others), but occasionally, the taxi drivers run off-meter, again stating a price when you peek you head into the car door telling him where you want to go. (Once in the taxi, the driver is supposed to be lawfully required to take you to where you want to go---so instead, this pre-entry request has evolved.) This seems to happen most often at malls and other tourist spots, so I assumed that it was once again an attempt to exploit my otherness/ignorance/complacency/supposed richness.
Two days ago, I heard a different story.
It was raining, I didn't have an umbrella, and where I needed to go to meet friends wasn't conveniently accessible by public transit (when I say that, I mean train...the bus schedules are a mystery to me!). I attempted to get a taxi for quite some time...there weren't many free and when they were, I was getting the annoying high-price figures. Granted, this is like the difference of less than $1 US, but...it's the principle of things really.
I asked a taxi and he said 15 RM and I refused...another man also waiting inquired to the same taxi and the driver told him that I was wanting to go to the same place and said we could share. 6 RM each. Now, by walking, it didn't seem far, but it was raining, like I said. I estimated the taxi ride by meter would be about 4 RM. At one point in the negotiation-standoff, the driver decided, fine, I could pay 5 but the other man had to pay 6. That didn't fly and he caved, agreeing we'd pay 5 RM each (I win, i win!). One of his arguments in negotiating is that it's only 1 RM, what difference does it make!? EXACTLY my point. Why should I be the one to budge? I get stubborn when it comes to things like this because I'm always sure I'm getting screwed. I hate that. (Note: 3.8 RM = $1, so 1 RM is about a quarter...that's how little we were squabbling over.)
My fellow rider was a local Indian man and the driver was Chinese. The driver immediately went into a lecture (that bordered on sermon because of his fervor and passion) about the injustice he had to deal with. The problem : preferential treatment for the Malays in the licensing of taxis that unfairly created hardship for other taxi drivers. The Malays are given certain privileges because of their status as sons of the soil (Bumiputras) while the Chinese and Indians were imported to Malaysian during colonialism (Indians mainly in the rubber and tea plantations, the Chinese took control of the economic sector/business). [I won't go into how the truly indigenous people, the Orang Asli, are time-and-again hurt by government policies...impoverished, forced relocation because of dam-projects, attempts to convert them to Islam, etc.]
There's a quota system/percentage of jobs in the government (that includes national universities, state hospitals, etc.) that must go to Malays. There used to be a similar system for education, though it was supposedly abandoned last year, though I'm not sure it isn't still operating discreetly. An Indian friend long ago voiced his hostility towards this kind of thing: he scored better on the final high school exam that decides university placement than a lot of Malays...but because he was Indian, he didn't get a position, though those Malays (with their reserved space allotments) did.
Back to the driver.
So, taxis are required to have permits and, he claims, 30% of drivers get them free just for being Malay. Another chunk get them subsidized, leaving the Chinese and Indians to have to pay full price for the monthly license (he was saying 750 RM/month). A friend just told me that a government employee (deputy minister or something) was sacked for corruption because he was giving permits to political supporters/friends for free. But that was on top of the sanctioned preference. Sometimes the Malays lease/rent their licensed taxis, essentially making money for doing nothing (other than being Malay).
This translates into an un-even playing field, whereby the driver has to work extra hard to make enough money just to pay for the full-priced permit, let alone make a living. This was clearly a lecture the taxi driver was used to giving. Somehow it segued into how the army is all Malay, the strength of the Singapore army, and something about a divided country and civil war. He lost me there.
I will admit that I had not considered an alternative side to what was the motivating factor behind the off-meter taxi…I was reluctant to entertain the idea that it was anything other than a taxi driver trying to take advantage of me and my foreignness. I told him as much and he admitted that perhaps taxi drivers were more inclined to quote off-meter prices to foreigners, but that it wasn’t limited to them and it was a matter of this un-even playing ground. Just look, he said, I told this local man you’re sharing the taxi with the same price as you.
The taxi driver did get me thinking: As a consumer, of course I’m going to object to paying more when I could be paying less. But then, how IS he supposed to make enough money to pay for the permit? Maybe I shouldn’t object to paying more if this is the case. I thought, momentarily, about paying him the 6 RM he’d asked for, but in the end forked over only the 5. Just as I am theoretically in favor of musicians’ rights, when it comes down to it, I’m gonna burn CDs and use Napster. The situation may not be fair for this guy, but in the end, I’m a consumer, motivated by self-interest. I’ll stick to the taxis that use meters, thank you very much.
I asked the driver if he had voted Sunday (believing that if you don’t like the policy and government, you’d better be exercising your voice) and he said he had—for the opposition. Later, I asked if he’d be saying all this if my fellow passenger were Malay and not Indian. He said that he’d say it in different words, so that they could understand it better. What I think he meant was, he’d be less inflammatory. (Since race riots back in 1969, talk about such political sensitive issues as race relations and criticisms of affirmative action are not covered by freedom of expression.)
I told this story to a Malay friend, who dismissed it, then said what amounted to, well, we are the original Malaysians, so it’s fair. My Indian friend mentioned above also maintained that he didn’t feel like a Malaysian. It seems the 40-odd years since independence have not been enough time to solidify a sense of oneness or nationalism. I’m reminded of a joke I think I mentioned before: Malaysia as multi-racist, not multi-racial.
When I told this story to a Chinese businessman friend, he confirmed the above generally. Government contracts must go to Bumi-owned businesses and companies that make more than 300 million RM/year must employ a minimum of 30% Malay with at least one Malay on the board of directors.
He held that affirmative action is not wrong at its basic level, sketching a picture of Chinese dominance and greater economic divides if there was not some attempt at evening things out. In the case of higher education, his astute assessment was that preference shouldn’t go blindly to any Malay, but to the poorest, most economically disadvantaged, to raise them up. Though Malays make up the ranks of the lowest economic class, educational scholarships and university places are going to middle class and rich Malays.
The question of affirmative action, quotas, and race relations is not an easy matter. Malaysia’s multi-ethnic makeup is mainly a result of colonialism, which often exploited the divisions in order to strengthen its rule (divide and maintain control). There seems to be no rhetoric here that exists in the US about “given equal qualifications and merit, the position will go to the historically disadvantaged candidate.” This makes its implementation disconcerting and problematic…perhaps generating more problems than it solves and raising questions of fairness.
Where in the world is...
Okay, I'm off tomorrow for the start of my whirlwind travels. I'll attempt to keep relatively up-to-date on here, but may find it difficult to experience/absorb/reflect without proper digestion time. You'll probably get a daily digest or bullet points, to be expounded on later.
A rough sketch of my next two months:
March 30th: Fly to Saigon, Vietnam
April 4th: bus to Phnom Penh, Cambodia
April 7: take boat up Mekong River to Angkor Wat, Cambodia
April 11: bus to Bangkok, Thailand
April 16: return to KL
April 22: fly to Laos from KL
April 27: fly to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand
April 29: bus to Mae Sot on Burma/Thai border to stay with friend working with refugees
May 3 or 4: return to KL
May 14: fly to USA
May 30: return to KL
whew!
(I never did see that movie...)
I usually depend on public transit, but on occasion find the need to taxi it. Now, in Egypt as a foreigner and where there are no meters, you had to learn to find out how much to pay from point A to point B ahead of time from trustworthy friends. When you got to your location, you'd get out of the taxi, hand the money through the window and start walking, preferably in the opposite direction from the way the taxi was headed, just in case he was going to try to cause problems. There were taxi drivers that would immediately declare an outrageous price, inflating the cost some 300%, thinking I was a tourist and didn't know any better. I hated that and always got out of the taxi, refusing to be ripped off.
Here, there are meters in the taxis (though some seem to run a bit faster than others), but occasionally, the taxi drivers run off-meter, again stating a price when you peek you head into the car door telling him where you want to go. (Once in the taxi, the driver is supposed to be lawfully required to take you to where you want to go---so instead, this pre-entry request has evolved.) This seems to happen most often at malls and other tourist spots, so I assumed that it was once again an attempt to exploit my otherness/ignorance/complacency/supposed richness.
Two days ago, I heard a different story.
It was raining, I didn't have an umbrella, and where I needed to go to meet friends wasn't conveniently accessible by public transit (when I say that, I mean train...the bus schedules are a mystery to me!). I attempted to get a taxi for quite some time...there weren't many free and when they were, I was getting the annoying high-price figures. Granted, this is like the difference of less than $1 US, but...it's the principle of things really.
I asked a taxi and he said 15 RM and I refused...another man also waiting inquired to the same taxi and the driver told him that I was wanting to go to the same place and said we could share. 6 RM each. Now, by walking, it didn't seem far, but it was raining, like I said. I estimated the taxi ride by meter would be about 4 RM. At one point in the negotiation-standoff, the driver decided, fine, I could pay 5 but the other man had to pay 6. That didn't fly and he caved, agreeing we'd pay 5 RM each (I win, i win!). One of his arguments in negotiating is that it's only 1 RM, what difference does it make!? EXACTLY my point. Why should I be the one to budge? I get stubborn when it comes to things like this because I'm always sure I'm getting screwed. I hate that. (Note: 3.8 RM = $1, so 1 RM is about a quarter...that's how little we were squabbling over.)
My fellow rider was a local Indian man and the driver was Chinese. The driver immediately went into a lecture (that bordered on sermon because of his fervor and passion) about the injustice he had to deal with. The problem : preferential treatment for the Malays in the licensing of taxis that unfairly created hardship for other taxi drivers. The Malays are given certain privileges because of their status as sons of the soil (Bumiputras) while the Chinese and Indians were imported to Malaysian during colonialism (Indians mainly in the rubber and tea plantations, the Chinese took control of the economic sector/business). [I won't go into how the truly indigenous people, the Orang Asli, are time-and-again hurt by government policies...impoverished, forced relocation because of dam-projects, attempts to convert them to Islam, etc.]
There's a quota system/percentage of jobs in the government (that includes national universities, state hospitals, etc.) that must go to Malays. There used to be a similar system for education, though it was supposedly abandoned last year, though I'm not sure it isn't still operating discreetly. An Indian friend long ago voiced his hostility towards this kind of thing: he scored better on the final high school exam that decides university placement than a lot of Malays...but because he was Indian, he didn't get a position, though those Malays (with their reserved space allotments) did.
Back to the driver.
So, taxis are required to have permits and, he claims, 30% of drivers get them free just for being Malay. Another chunk get them subsidized, leaving the Chinese and Indians to have to pay full price for the monthly license (he was saying 750 RM/month). A friend just told me that a government employee (deputy minister or something) was sacked for corruption because he was giving permits to political supporters/friends for free. But that was on top of the sanctioned preference. Sometimes the Malays lease/rent their licensed taxis, essentially making money for doing nothing (other than being Malay).
This translates into an un-even playing field, whereby the driver has to work extra hard to make enough money just to pay for the full-priced permit, let alone make a living. This was clearly a lecture the taxi driver was used to giving. Somehow it segued into how the army is all Malay, the strength of the Singapore army, and something about a divided country and civil war. He lost me there.
I will admit that I had not considered an alternative side to what was the motivating factor behind the off-meter taxi…I was reluctant to entertain the idea that it was anything other than a taxi driver trying to take advantage of me and my foreignness. I told him as much and he admitted that perhaps taxi drivers were more inclined to quote off-meter prices to foreigners, but that it wasn’t limited to them and it was a matter of this un-even playing ground. Just look, he said, I told this local man you’re sharing the taxi with the same price as you.
The taxi driver did get me thinking: As a consumer, of course I’m going to object to paying more when I could be paying less. But then, how IS he supposed to make enough money to pay for the permit? Maybe I shouldn’t object to paying more if this is the case. I thought, momentarily, about paying him the 6 RM he’d asked for, but in the end forked over only the 5. Just as I am theoretically in favor of musicians’ rights, when it comes down to it, I’m gonna burn CDs and use Napster. The situation may not be fair for this guy, but in the end, I’m a consumer, motivated by self-interest. I’ll stick to the taxis that use meters, thank you very much.
I asked the driver if he had voted Sunday (believing that if you don’t like the policy and government, you’d better be exercising your voice) and he said he had—for the opposition. Later, I asked if he’d be saying all this if my fellow passenger were Malay and not Indian. He said that he’d say it in different words, so that they could understand it better. What I think he meant was, he’d be less inflammatory. (Since race riots back in 1969, talk about such political sensitive issues as race relations and criticisms of affirmative action are not covered by freedom of expression.)
I told this story to a Malay friend, who dismissed it, then said what amounted to, well, we are the original Malaysians, so it’s fair. My Indian friend mentioned above also maintained that he didn’t feel like a Malaysian. It seems the 40-odd years since independence have not been enough time to solidify a sense of oneness or nationalism. I’m reminded of a joke I think I mentioned before: Malaysia as multi-racist, not multi-racial.
When I told this story to a Chinese businessman friend, he confirmed the above generally. Government contracts must go to Bumi-owned businesses and companies that make more than 300 million RM/year must employ a minimum of 30% Malay with at least one Malay on the board of directors.
He held that affirmative action is not wrong at its basic level, sketching a picture of Chinese dominance and greater economic divides if there was not some attempt at evening things out. In the case of higher education, his astute assessment was that preference shouldn’t go blindly to any Malay, but to the poorest, most economically disadvantaged, to raise them up. Though Malays make up the ranks of the lowest economic class, educational scholarships and university places are going to middle class and rich Malays.
The question of affirmative action, quotas, and race relations is not an easy matter. Malaysia’s multi-ethnic makeup is mainly a result of colonialism, which often exploited the divisions in order to strengthen its rule (divide and maintain control). There seems to be no rhetoric here that exists in the US about “given equal qualifications and merit, the position will go to the historically disadvantaged candidate.” This makes its implementation disconcerting and problematic…perhaps generating more problems than it solves and raising questions of fairness.
Where in the world is...
Okay, I'm off tomorrow for the start of my whirlwind travels. I'll attempt to keep relatively up-to-date on here, but may find it difficult to experience/absorb/reflect without proper digestion time. You'll probably get a daily digest or bullet points, to be expounded on later.
A rough sketch of my next two months:
March 30th: Fly to Saigon, Vietnam
April 4th: bus to Phnom Penh, Cambodia
April 7: take boat up Mekong River to Angkor Wat, Cambodia
April 11: bus to Bangkok, Thailand
April 16: return to KL
April 22: fly to Laos from KL
April 27: fly to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand
April 29: bus to Mae Sot on Burma/Thai border to stay with friend working with refugees
May 3 or 4: return to KL
May 14: fly to USA
May 30: return to KL
whew!
