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. :-)