rewards from a $10 cab ride

i used to hate it when cabbies start talking to you like thirty seconds after you get in the cab and named your destination, because thay need to vent about the government or the last passenger that was being so super unreasonable...

i dont know whether if im taking too many taxis around these days, or that suddenly, i've gotten dumber (i would pick the former), but i have made an observation that i've been learning a lot from cabbies. For instance, the cab i took today home from taka, educated me on the whole computer system of the taxi thing.. informing me that the whole GPS powered booking and metre system is so automated and he cant do anything about it even if he wanted to.. then he goes on to say the different places your taxi is in, the incoming bookings will only feature on the taxis that are located in the area... i kinda never knew that.. pretty neat huh??

Also, the other day, i was on the taxi home, and the cabby sorta told me the history of the area i lived in, that stagmount ring was actually a british camp long ago, and that he used to catch shellfish and fish in the clear kranji river in the fifties... that is before the industrial park at kranji was up, then the river became polluted and got turned into a canal.. so yeah.. again, stuff i never knew, and unlikely to actually find out..

Another time, i was on this Chinese muslim's cab. That was the first ever time i've actually seen a Chinese muslim. I was quite puzzled by the stuff i saw on his cab as there were arab words everywhere and Islamic symbols hanging from his rear view mirror. So i asked him, and he gave a powerful speech about his faith and almost a completely new take to my understanding of Islam, and what its about.. i mean.. this kind of things you dont hear very often. All you hear all the time is the perversion of Islam being used as an excuse to bomb stuff and to kill people, but how many of us actually considered their views of things? How not every muslim thinks America is BIG SATAN, and that the only way to ensure their means are met is by force? Furthermore, i dont think i would sit one of my muslim friends down and ask them all about their religion. Seriously, does anyone out there actually do?? Its really cool that there are some of them actually would want to open up to a complete stranger and share their beliefs with us, their philosophy towards life in general.. so yeah.. pretty rewarding..

There was once i was quite touched by this 40+ year old malay cabby who "taught" me the importance of treating your mother well... as in he his only reason was that the mother brought you into the world and nursing you, nurturing you into what you are now, and that is worth you giving everything to treat your old mother well, even when you have your own children. What he said was that he goes to his mother's place to have lunch with her everyday.. and his everyday is literally everyday.. mann.. like he is the only one out of her 8 children that visits her everyday. and she is this 70 year old lady.. i mean, isnt it admirable? such a person with so much commitments already, with his own family, his job, which is not very well paying. Most other drivers would be outside as long as they can take to try and get more money to bring home. However when i asked him how does he get so much time to visite his mother who lives so far away, he said, "money is everywhere in the world, i can get more by working harder, but i only have one mother. And when that is gone, i can never get it back." it kinda struck a chord in me for the ways i've treated my mom.... i mean.. i consider myself a fairly filial kid, but compared to him? and compared to the amount i've recieved from mummy dearest? yeah.. should think about it.

so i guess ou can learn a thing or two from everyone, if you just open your mind and bother to listen....






but please note, that there are still cabbies that are just seriously full of shit....