A Taxi Conversation

I went to visit my sister in Sembawang this evening. That essentially means 2 long taxi rides that cost me $30.00 in total. These visits to my sister are almost always the only times I wish I could drive... The MRT ride from where I live to Sembawang takes a little more than an hour and after that I would still need to get a cab or ask my nephew for a ride, so all in, it takes close to 2 hours just to get there! So, yes, call me a spoilt Singaporean if you will, but when I decide to go visit my sister, I take a cab. Both ways. Sometimes, money isn't every thing :)

So, today, I had 2 interesting conversations with the taxi drivers who took me there and back. The first one who drove me to Sembawang regaled me with stories centred around the theme "People are ungrateful and don't remember the good you have done for them". This involved various cousins and their families who had availed themselves of his services as a 'caster out of black magic spells' yet now did not want to have anything to do with him. While the tales of different cousins and the troubles they had gotten into and that he had rescued them from were entertaining, after the 4th story, I kind of got the picture. He was not just a taxi driver, he was a misunderstood saint. I was also suitably impressed by his insistence that he found Indians the best of all and unlike many other taxi drivers, he was NOT a racist :)

The driver who drove me back from Sembabwang to home, was a different personality altogether. I arrived at Dover with immense respect for the man. He spoke very well and it turned out that he had retired and was sharing the taxi with 3 other retired men who were all no longer dependent on the income from their driving. This gentleman said at 17 years of age he set himslef goals; he had worked as a crane operator in the Middle East drawing $7000.00 a month, volunteered to be retrenched during the 1987 economic crisis and returned to Singapore with a golden handshake worth $250,000.00. He has 2 children who are both aircraft technicians living in Australia, he has 2 grandchildren there and every 6 months he hangs up his car keys and travels to spend time with his children. He owns 3 houses in Johore Bahru, his flat in Singapore is fully paid up, he has no debts, his children give his wife $4000.00 a month which she saves for herself. The picture seemed similar for the other 2 men he shared the cab with - one had 2 houses in KL, the other had a bungalow in Malacca and they had all fully paid up mortgages on their HDB flats! I am truly full of respect for this man.

This taxi driver said when he was 17 he decided he would live by one main value - Discipline. As a result he said there were 5 Principles he lived by:

1. Not to be a 'coffee shop cabbie' (meaning he would put in the hours on the road and not idle at coffee shops during his shift)
2. No drinking
3. No smoking
4. No gambling
5. No womanising

He said by living in this way, he had a happy home, his children respected him, his wife was contented, he wasted neither time nor money and he had peace of mind. It seemed like a simple and maybe even a trite formula, but what I was hearing was a man who had lived his life well and was enjoying the fruits of his labour. It is a life to be emulated.