On Singapore Cabs

A quick note about cabs in Singapore: they're cheap but they're weird. I've never met people so averse to earning a fare or keeping a tip as Singapore cabbies, who will quickly dig out and insistently thrust a 10 cent coin at you if you pay your S$9.90 fair with a tenner. The no-tipping policy is culture shock, but the thing that kills me is the unintended consequence of regulation that makes it impossible to find a cab: if you call for a cab in this country they slap an extra S$2 on the fare, so they all lurk around the corner of major destinations waiting for a call. Last night this provided the second of two Singapore cab absurdities as Amstelbooij and I stood outside a restaurant looking at two cabs parked across the street, unwilling to come over and pick us up until they were dispatched... I still can't figure out how these people make money when they spend so much time ducking fares hoping for a dispatch, trying to make sure they get back to the garage just as their shift ends, or my favorite: pulling over for half an hour before sundown and refusing fares because they can charge an extra 50 cents at night. So basically hailing a cab here is harder than dubbing a Nicholas Cage movie into Cantonese, and half of the guys with their lights on are carrying passengers off the books anyways, so it's a mystery how the cab companies stay in business at all.

My two favorite Singapore cabbies in short order last night: first we had a cabbie pull over, then tells us when we got in that her shift was over in half an hour so she couldn't take us anywhere. I'm still not sure why she pulled over in the first place, or why a 10-15 minute trip for you know, cash money was such an onerous burden (it's kind of your job), but we had to pop out and try and flag down even more cabs who wouldn't pull over: either they had passengers and hadn't dropped the flag or were waiting to be dispatched. This was a bit annoying as we were in a mad race to get to an Indian restaurant before the kitchen closed, but it looked like somebody was going to come to our rescue... and then he cautiously drove about 1km below the speed limit at all times while getting directions off of Amstelbooij's iPhone. He mentioned that driving a cab was a weekend job for him; he was a driving instructor for the army. The guy usually drove a tank, so I guess that explains why he was a bit skittish in traffic. We did make dinner with a gentle instruction from our waiter, “If you want anything, order it NOW.”

For some reason in a country where rapid growth and the need to import consumer goods has driven rampant inflation, a few things like cabs are still ridiculously cheap. Singapore does enjoy a supply of cheap labor from Indonesia, Malaysia and southern India with very little oversight, which means housing and living costs can skyrocket while at the same time a live-in maid and nanny or a driver are surprisingly affordable. This is sort of awkward as I'm not used to being waited on without forking over a huge tip, and it's even more awkward when there's a clear race and class difference... guess I'm not European enough, or at least most of my European ancestry and tradition comes from Europe's former colonies not its colonizers. On the other hand while I feel a little weird about an Indonesian maid doing my laundry, I was sort of fine with my friend's Chinese wife washing stuff for me in Chicago while I made jokes about the Chinese laundry being open. My white guilt is apparently quite intermittent.

Rufus, from Singapore