Charging more for English is racist

The Taipei City Government is considering allowing taxi drivers with "proven" English ability to charge foreign passengers more money ("English speaking cabbies may get a raise," April 27th, page 2). "More money" in this case being defined as 10 to 20 percent extra. In essence the plan says; if you are white you pay 10 to 20 percent more. That is racism pure and simple.

Charging me more because of my skin color is a racist policy that perhaps the city of Taipei ought not to support. It does come as a bit of a shock that the city and Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who is frequently at pains to put forward an image of Taipei as a city friendly to foreigners, would promote such a nakedly racist plan.

What the city will try and claim is that this program is an attempt to make the city more "international" and that "internationalizing" is important. However, Ma's dream of internationalizing Taipei has about as much substance as former premier Vincent Siew's (蕭萬長) old plan to make Taiwan a regional hub. Both are laughable nonsense.

A plan to allow cabbies of proven English ability charge all foreigners an extra percentage is a poor plan for a number of reasons. The most important is the already mentioned racist aspect of it. It is also a direct violation of international law. It is also, as a practical matter an open invitation for trouble and fraud. Many foreigners would take umbrage at a cabbie who turn to them and says: "Well the meter says NT$100 but as you are white you pay NT$120." Even if the cabbie says it in polite grammatical English, it is still an invitation for a fistfight.

It also opens up yet another avenue for bribery and fraud. The plan calls for some kind of testing and certification for these English-speaking cabbies. Well, knowing what I do about how things work here in Taiwan, what that means is that the cabbie pays some bribe, some hong-bao (紅包) to someone and then, regardless of English-language skill, the cabbie is certified and he or she can go hunting for those tourist with the extra 10 to 20 percent.

Beyond these practical problems there is also the issue of what purpose the plan is supposed to serve. Many foreigners who either visit or live here long term can speak Chinese. For those, such as myself, who can not, as long-term residents we know the drill; have your address in Chinese. All the tourist guides make clear that cabbies generally don't speak or read English, so any tourist with any sense realizes this. The bottom line being, almost nobody benefits from this plan.

Why then did Ma mention the plan? This plan, I would guess, is an attempt on Ma's part to curry favor from the cabbies. The cabbies are a voting block he will need when he runs for president in a couple of years and it is a voting block where he has little support. So what better way to suck up to that group than to tell them, "hey, I will let you nail the foreigners 10 or 20 percent extra, so come on, vote for me."

What I would recommend if the mayor and the city wants to do something regarding the taxi system is to do three things; all of which are workable.

First, insure that former convicts and folks with felony records are not driving cabs. I realize that in theory cabbies are already not supposed to be ex-cons or felons. However, about a month ago the cabbie driving me around had quite a number of tattoos. Given his age I would guess they were prison tats, not his attempt to make a fashion statement.