What would expect from a book like this? A lot whining and grumbling? Bitterness? Anti-establishment views that one often hears from the “uncles” behind the wheel?
Well, there’s certainly quite a few subtle stabs at the people “high up on the food chain” (Cai’s own words), but this ex-prof is certainly not bitter about his predicament. Imagine him driving an “upgrading” construction worker from his hometown in China who said 人往高处爬，水往低处流 to him. The laughable irony of those words! You might expect the ex-prof to shed a tear or two, but no.
Dr Cai says: “What it (losing his job as prof) has done to me, however, is only to push me to a “new high”, a new boundary where I don’t have to survive by playing their games … I am happier now as a taxi driver than in my last two years as a professor, when I often had to feel sorry for myself for having to work in that environment.”
I’m impressed. This humiliating blow has ironically helped Dr Cai find his pride and his 骨气.
Of course, like other taxi drivers, Dr Cai encountered many rude, unreasonable passengers, shallow, presumptuous people, snobbish drivers, a few good samaritans, exotic ladyboys, stupidly funny backseat conversations and insider’s info on how taxi companies save costs and ensure profitability at the expense of their drivers. But Dr Cai also has his “poetic moments” – a feature which will distinguish his work from that of a less sophisticated taxi driver.
As expected from his admission to being happier as a taxi driver, the pages in his diary is full of politically incorrect but candid and brutally honest observations like: “I doubt any security guard in Singapore would bother to ask questions before opening the gate for a White stranger”.
And he has this to say about our “peasants”: “Without their strength and endurance, this nation, no matter how many gold or silver medals it wins in the Olympics, and no matter how many hundreds of billions of dollars it has in its reserves, will eeventually collapse.”
A slap in the face? If only people will wake up to some uncomfortable and inconvenient realities.
Dewdrop Notes
Dr Chan's Kitchen