Lovely English-Speaking Jinjiang Taxi Driver

After the nice meetup at the Canglong Fang, Jack, Xiaofeng and I happily got on board a yellow Jinjiang Taxi. Xiaofeng immediately noticed the driver is a four-star driver. They have a plate at the front of the passenger seat displaying their status of the stars. Four-star means at least he should be able to speak some English. Of cause, I didn’t realize this until about 20 minutes later.

When we were talking about the driving experience in Silicon Valley, since Xiaofeng still lives there, the driver suddenly asked us one question: “What is the difference between Freeway and Expressway in U.S?”

Not every taxi driver cares about the difference between these two English words, even a lot of people who learn English for many years.

He added: “I just heard my passengers sometimes use Expressway, and sometimes use Highway. I am curious about the difference. I am trying to learn English, but never been to U.S.”

What a good learner he was.

Before that, he demonstrated his great knowledge about Shanghai. I asked him to take me to “Hi-tech West Road”, and he immediately told me he knew the road. It was much higher than my expectation, since the road near my home was called Bowen Road before (for at least half centaury?), but just renamed to “Hi-Tech West Road” last month. His knowledge about Shanghai was updated so quickly. You know, not many taxi drivers in Puxi can tell the small roads in Pudong.

Finally, we said Goodbye, and he would go to another place at the south part of the Hunan Road to pickup his Italy customer. The 30 minutes conversation made me believe he is a skillful, knowledgeable taxi for Shanghai road, and English-speaking good taxi driver. So I’d like to leave his contact information on the blog to help him to get more business. Maybe next time you arrive in Pudong Airport, you can give him a call in advance to ask him picks you up at Pudong Airport. His name card reads:

Chinese Name: CHEN Quan

English Name: David Chen

Mobile: +8613801929519

(Posted with permission)

Good luck, David!

P.S. It is so lurxy to live in a city like Shanghai. There are enough smart people with good experience. They inspire you very day about the future. I had wonderful afternoon with Jack, Hwhua, Jinsong (he is researching on how brain works), Xiaofeng and Financial editor from Modern Weekly. The quote of the day I got was from Xiaofeng:

“You can not get everything, but you always can get something”

It is all about YOUR choice.

P.S. 2: I will leave Shanghai again before the Spring Festival for business trip to Hong Kong tomorrow. The flight is at 9:40 AM. Yiyi told me I should arrive at around 12:30 at Hong Kong airport. The next entry will be sent back from Hong Kong. Thanks Wendy for packing up for me. :-)

14 thoughts on “Lovely English-Speaking Jinjiang Taxi Driver”

Jian Shuo, I am totally convinced that eBay found the perfect person to run Kijiji China community. You are so gifted in connecting people, capturing and conveying valuable information and experiences that might appear to be trivial, sharing insights, and inspiring a community for better quality of life. That is exactly what I expect from Kijiji.

Expressway: On the East Coast, an expressway is the catchall term for a grade separated limited access highway. In California an expressway is simply a limited access highway; essentially a freeway with at grade intersections, but divided and built to freeway standards. Technically, in California all expressways are freeways, but in general practice expressways are a different entity. Originally many current freeways were constructed as expressways during the late 1940s and early 1950s and had grade separated interchanges added later.

Freeway: Generally a freeway is a grade separated divided highway designed for high speeds. Contrary to popular belief, a freeway is not a highway “free” from tolls. The “free” in freeway instead refers to a legislative definition passed by the California Legislature in 1939 which provided for a highway that would be free of encroaching properties and which provided for control of access. At the time this was very controversial since property owners next to the road could have no rights of direct access.

http://www.gbcnet.com/ushighways/glossary.html

Don’t forget Highways, Interstates, Parkways, US Routes, State Routes, State Roads, County Roads, City Avenues, Boulevards, Streets, Roads, Drives, Lanes, Alleys

JianShuo, you always amazed me with no surprise and you amazed me again with the insight to the trivial things. :-)

The meeting is great and thanks for the organizing

上个月,我在南京路置地广场附近,看到一个蓝色出租车停在路边.

司机请路人翻译,因为有个外国男子做上他的出租车,和他讲要到的地方,他听不懂.

于是,我上前询问,看到外国人给地址是:duolun cultural street.

中文的意思是:多伦名人街.我向司机用中文解释,在四川路,靠近鲁讯公园的地方.

我想要是司机能懂一点英文,可以给乘客多些方便.

shirley

Oh, really good. Taxi driver with a license is more better. It’s lucky that this driver is.

I got a Canadian friend arrived at Shanghai days before. The taxi driver he met at his arrival at the Pudong International Airport speaks English well too, and it was wired that this guy was convinced by the driver to pay 700 RMB for the ride from the airport to the hotel in downtown, without an invoice or a payment check. This poor Canadian just paid that much!

This man was far more poor when he spent more than 3 thousand RMB merely for a 3-hour drink together with a girl at somewhere on the East Nanjing Rd. Again, no invoice.

So, find a driver with a license is very important, and guys from licit taxi companise always have one. Again it’s lucky that the driver Jianshuo is recommending is one of those licensed people.

Jian,

I was searching Google for flight information in China, and came to your blog, where you mentioned to someone you had a friend in travel agency. If your friend still work there, could you perhaps help me in finding flights in China ?

We are 3 friends from Norway visiting China in the end of February. We arrive Beijing, spend a few days there, and will try to get a train to Xian to see Terracotta Warriors. From Xian we need a flight to Shenzhen in the evening of Wednesday 22.February. And we also need a flight from Shenzhen to Beijing Friday evening 3.March.

If possible, could you check price and times for these flights for me ?

Sincerely

Arild Krag

Xiaofeng and Jack, it is so nice to have friends like you and I enjoy spending the night sunny Sunday afternoon with you, and get inspired. Keep the meeting going on. I am not so ambitious. If we can meet once every year, and keep doing that for 5 years, it will make big difference for everyone of us.

Arild, I am afraid I cannot help you on this. The flight information is public and any travel company will be happy to have you as their guest. I would suggest you to check ctrip.com (they have english version) first, and then look up any travel agent and call them.

I usually compare the price between ctrip.com and http://www.elong.net/ for best price. Both companies are pretty reputable in China.

I called David and he provided me with the airport transfers during my New Year stay in Shanghai, he is reliable, courteous and a safe driver, cannot compare him with the average Shanghai taxi driver who are described as “jockey with a death wish”.

It would be very convenient for the foreigners if all the taxi drivers can speaks english, because some times it is really a great problem if you can not communicate with others.

Hi Jian Shuo, do you know if David Chen’s number is still the same one? I’m travelling to Shanghai next week and it’ll be good to have a ready form of transportation on hand.

Thought it was time for an update:

Last week I contacted David Chen on the number listed earlier in this blog and was most satisfied with his service to and from Pu Dong Airport. He has been driving in Shanghai for 12 years and has made a number of “foreign friends” over that time. Definitely recommend him, highly. Call him if you need airport pick-up or drop-off and/or day trips to cities near Shanghai – nothing to loose right?