The Expo Taxi's 10 Commandments

As the temperature of the Expo-fever has been raising in the last year, Shanghai needed a little icing on top of the already amply creamed cake. Riding taxis in Shanghai is not always a pleasurable affair, and I suppose the city had some self-realization on this point and decided that the city's traffic needed a little "pick-me-up". Apparently they chose the best drivers in the city and gave them a brand new car to drive as a reward. There is definitely a difference in the quality of the expo-drivers (sometimes... unless they decided that you are in a hurry, without your prior knowledge of this fact) and the "regular" drivers. On my last taxi trip I decided that they must have been given 10 holy commandments that they had to follow.

1. Thou shalt try to speak English, even if all you can meekly stutter is incomprehensible "chinglish".
2. Thou shalt listen closely to your passengers when they scream with indisputable urgency that they are scared for their life to the extent that at least two of the passengers are crying.
3. Thou shalt smile. Or draw your lips upwards towards your eyes so that it at least possibly resembles a smile.
4. Thou shalt not make your passengers deaf by playing Peking Opera so loudly that the singing only dogs can hear will burst ear drums.
5. Thou shalt use AC, because lets face it, white people cannot handle the hardcore Shanghai heat and humidity. They are not goldfish.
6. Thou shalt speak as much as possible with your passengers, even if they give no sign of understanding what you are saying.
7. Thou shalt not yell at a passenger who does not know the exact intersecting road they may want to go to. Not everyone knows Shanghais over one million streets as intimately as the Shanghai taxi driver.
8. Thou shalt keep your taxi clean. No paper, trash, smelly pillows, food residue, dirt or faeces.
9. Thou shalt take a shower at least once a week to reduce the potential smell of human bodily odors that make the passengers sick, or dog-like when they ride with their head out the window to survive the horrors of smells that should never have to be smelled.
10. Thou shalt not drive before all people and all limbs are inside the car. All passengers must be unharmed when leaving the vehicle.

Enjoy your Expo-taxi ride, they even have seat belts in the back seat!!
Trine:)