small island south
20 Apr 09 - Monday - 6:52 p.m.
There is this taxi driver who always picked us up from Court in the evening back to our offices. He will put on his “on call” sign and only pick up lawyers, going back and forth a few times between Tanjong Pagar / Raffles Place and the Courts.
I first took his taxi in my first year of practice with Y, who told me that the taxi driver was his friend’s father. They always spoke Cantonese with each other. Usually when we get off court in the evening at 5-ish 6pm, most of the taxis would be on call or changing duty. As such, 2 or 3 of us with offices in the same area would usually carpool in his taxi back.
Some where along the line, he changed cab companies. I’m not sure if anyone had ever asked him why. I personally don’t usually engage him in conversation. As there were usually 2 or more of us in his cab together, we’d usually be chatting with each other rather than him. I was just mostly grateful for a ride after a long day of work.
I got into his cab alone this evening [because everyone else wanted to get a drink and I had to rush back to the office for a meeting] and he started yabbering away to me in Cantonese asking me how Y is and other small talk. I nodded, smiled, tried to figure out what he was saying, then finally told him that I actually didn’t understand Cantonese. So he asked me what dialect group I belonged to.
Hainanese, I said.
He told me that he was Hainanese too and asked me what my surname was.
And then he asked me whether my father was Bo Chiew who repaired air-conditioners.
Apparently, he stayed in the same kampong with my father and his brother and my father used to go swimming together.
He knows where my parents stay and how many sisters I have and where my father’s shop used to be. He had wanted to ask me this question for a really long time because of how much I look like my father but over the last 5 years or more, he couldn’t figure out how to broach the topic and I was always with other people so he never got around to asking me.
Send my regards to your father, he said when we parted. I thanked him in Hainanese, stepping out of his cab in a daze, overwhelmed by how surreal it all was.
When I got back to my office, I called home and asked my father whether he knew the chap and was told by my father that years ago, the chap had cheated some people of money and had his taxi license suspended and had to change taxi companies. I should never associate with the chap under any circumstances because he is a liar and a cheat.
As such, I will never be able to get into his cab and look at him the same way again.