Translations

March 16, 2005

Cowardly Statists Harass the Weak

When you become a cab driver you eventually learn that the public have their own special language reserved for when they are in your cab. "East" often means "west", "north" means "south" etc. Sometimes passengers will ask you to take them to places that don't exist. You will have to interpret these instructions as best you can. Sometimes this will be very easy... like the guy you just picked up at the pawn shop who wants to go to "Mary Street North". Well, in Hamilton, there is no "Mary Street North". There is a "Mary Street" though, so if you take the passenger to Mary Street everyone usually ends up happy.

At other times, extensive consultations are required to determine the desired destination. I once picked up a passenger with a heavy German accent on King Street, east of Victoria somewhere. He could barely speak English at all. He wanted to go to "Victoria East". I tried to tell the guy there was no Victoria East but he became agitated, pointing at the meter and forcefully repeating the word "east".

In Hamilton, there is a Victoria North and a Victoria South, with the dividing line being King Street East. King is a one-way street going west. Victoria is one-way going north. Since I could not decipher the man's instructions I was faced with a problem here.... if I drove straight down King Street to Victoria and the guy was going to Victoria (or Vic) North everything would be cool, since I could just make the right turn from a one-way to a one-way and zip the guy to his destination.

On the other hand, if the guy actually wanted to go to Vic south, then driving to the intersection of King and Vic would most likely be an overshot, having missed the opportunity to go south along East Ave to Hunter or Stinson and circle back down on Vic South. The guy left me with no alternative but to flip a coin and hope for the best. So I decided to proceed to King and Vic.

When we arrived at the intersection of King and Vic I just shrugged and pointed both ways on Vic hoping the guy would point in the direction he wanted to go. As luck would have it, the guy was not going to Vic North. By now the guy was going into meter-paroxysms, as some passengers are known to do at the terrifying realization that this trip might cost them an extra dime. He would point at the meter, scream "East, east"... then point south along Victoria Ave. It eventually became clear that he wanted me to make a left turn on Victoria.

I tried to explain that I could not turn left here, pointing to the one-way signs at the intersection, to no avail. He just kept to his routine of pointing at the meter, screaming "East, east".... then pointing south along victoria. The situation was becoming ever more tense, and I could tell he was more than a little bit annoyed at my inability to interpret the non-language he was using to "communicate".

A good cab driver is aware of the importance of always putting the customer first. Even when the customer is a complete loonie, impossible to please, and thoroughly abusive a good cab driver just smiles and tries to have a nice day. I don't know how long we sat at this intersection pointing at signs, meters and "arguing". While I have become somewhat better at cab driving over the years, my temper threshold was a bit lower in those days and I finally lost it with this guy. I shouted at the top of my lungs, "I can't turn left here, it's a fucking one-way street! Verstehst!

Well, he certainly appeared to understand that one German word. It seemed to physically hit the guy because he actually recoiled from it. Then he finally shut up and I drove up to Wellington, a one-way street going south, and circled around to come back down Victoria south and get rid of the guy. For some reason he didn't leave a tip.

It seems to be a universal principle or natural law of cab driving, when the passenger is a recent immigrant who can't put two English words together it's the driver's fault. The inability of cab drivers to understand every language of the world is seen as some kind of serious affront and almost always elicits anger.

I was once dispatched to an apartment complex. The guy who came out appeared to be a recent immigrant from Viet Nam and/or Cambodia. He couldn't speak a word of English. And he was quite obviously piss-drunk. I could tell by the way he was swaying back and forth. I think the slurring of his speech was also detectable. How the call taker at the dispatch office ever extracted an address from this guy speaks to the enormous skill required by taxi office call takers.

"Oh brother", I thought, "I hope he has a slip of paper or something with an address on it." Well, it turned out he wasn't even going anywhere. The best interpretation I could muster was that he was expecting a case of beer. Contrary to popular belief, cab drivers generally do not drive around with a case of beer in the trunk so I couldn't help the guy.

So how do you explain to a piss-drunk Viet Namese immigrant who doesn't speak a word of English that you don't have any beer? I tried using gestures, raising my hands with palm facing upwards while saying, "No Beer Here!" It didn't work. The guy developed the impression that I was intentionally jerking him around and started to get angry. Fortunately, the guy was accompanied by a friend who had only half the amplitude of the first. When he tried to calm his friend down I used their momentary distraction to extricate myself from the situation.

A cab driver I knew back in 1977, Brian Campbell, had me in stitches as he relayed a similar experience. Some guy he picked up wanted to go to "Baahrtoun - Yarmis". For all I know, it may have been the same guy I took to "Victoria East". Brian described the same histrionics as this passenger attempted to communicate his desire. The difference in this case was that the passenger had a much larger repertoire of English words. Skillfully using the words, "pool hall" and "corner" the two of them were finally able to zero in on the desired destination. Barton and James.

Finally there was the guy I had who wanted to go to "Isbon". "Isbon?" I wondered, where the heck is that? So I got out my Arrow Street guide. Well that got it started again.... "wats amadda? You taaxi dryva don' know vere Isbon is? Turned out he wanted to go to East Bend. East Bend - Isbon... sure, every taahxi dryva know dat!

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1. Translations.
2. Trust Me.
3. Drive!
4. Stoned Man!
5. I'm a Canadian!
6. Violence.

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last modified:Wednesday,March 19, 2008 at 04:40