You are old, Uncle Wang

A few weeks ago, I was picked up by a cabbie with the registration number 0175**.

I think that's the oldest taxi driver registration number I've ever had.

The very low numbers aren't always a good thing.  Some guys who've been on the road that long degenerate into cantankerous misanthropes or homicidal/suicidal loons.  Others appear to have taken a twenty-year break from the profession soon after qualifying, and are every bit as clueless in their car control and geographical awareness as the bumptious newbies.  Others, perhaps, are just bewildered by the pace of change in the city, and suffer an anxiety attack if called upon to operate outside of a narrow 'home turf'.  And sometimes you find a number that has fairly obviously been "reassigned" to a nephew or grandchild - there is no way that this baby-faced twenty-something has even five years' experience on the road, let alone the twenty-plus years his registration number would seem to indicate!

But this chap, Mr '0175', was the real deal: he knew how to drive a car, he knew how to get around the city, and he was affable and laidback with it.  And, oh boy, he's been in the job a long time.  He still had his original photo on the registration card on the dash: the scrawny youth with a shock of unkempt black hair was only just recognisable as the stout, shaven-headed man sitting beside me now; he couldn't have been more than about twenty years old in that picture, I would guess.  He told me he was now 55 years old.

When you find a guy like this, you want to take him home with you as a full-time chauffeur (ah, if only I had that kind of money!).  At the very least, you try to get his phone number, so that the next time you need to get to the airport in the rush hour... or get to a wedding way out on the west side of town on a national holiday... or...

[Please note:  my invitation to contribute your own observations of impressively ancient cab driver registrations - or general anecdotes of your experience with taxis in China - is still open... HERE.]