Busy - Living, Driving and Dying in Singapore.

Last night, eight taxi buddies and I attended Ah Kow's funeral wake at the void deck of his 3 room flat in Jurong East. Ah Kow was a poor taxi driver who died of a heart attack a day earlier. He was 62, had no siblings and his parents died many years ago. As it was 3am when we arrived after our driving work, the wake was deserted. But Ah Kow had many friends who must had attended his wake earlier in the evening.

The simple coffin was placed on two wooden stood two feet above the ground and a recent photograph of Ah Kow was placed at the head of the coffin which was not sealed during the wake. As a timid person, I didn't dare to have a last look at him inside his coffin. I'm sure Ah Kow would understand and forgive me.

Foods, fruits, two paper "servants", an alter for burning of incense and two lighted white candles were placed infront of the coffin. We lighted incense, bowed as a sign of respect to the family and made a donation of a few hundred dollars to help the family defray the costs of the funeral.The donation money was a collection from all his taxi buddies in Jurong Central coffee shop. Each gave between $20 - $30. 

"James, did you hear about Ah Ong, the taxi driver?," asked Roy, my best friend who had a lucky escape from a recent heart attack.

"Which Ah Ong?" I replied with a question.

"You know... the older guy with glasses, always smoking " Roy continued.

Roy could be describing about half the taxi drivers at the wake, including myself.

"Yeah, well, last week Ah Ong went to the doctor complaining about a back ache and chess pain. Turns out he had terminal lung cancer. He had maybe two weeks to live then" Roy said in a sad voice.

"Geez... really?" I was surprised with his revelation.

"For months he figured he was just stiff from driving long shifts. It got to the point he could barely stand up."  Roy said as he demonstrated with both hand at his hips and a hunched back.

"Wow, how sad" I softly let off a grief. 

"All they can do is give him something for the pain... He finished out the week driving, then went home to die." Roy said sternly.

"What? He decided to spend one of his last days on earth driving a cab and die?" I exclaimed loudly.

"What else was he going to do? He's been driving a cab more than thirty years. That's twelve hours a day, seven days a week, every week of the year. I've been driving nearly fifteen years and I don't remember him ever taking a vacation. No hobbies. No real friends. Just driving a cab and his family. He put his two kids through university, though!" Roy said as calmly as he could.

"How old is he, Roy?" I asked

" About 65, I guess."

"That's my age, Roy."

Now, I don't even know Ah Ong but this shook me up. Not because of the tragedy of his death, but because of the tragedy of his life. I wonder if 35 years ago, at 30 when Ong first started driving, what dreams he had for himself. At 30, he was strong, full of energy, with nothing but time and his imagination standing between him and the future.

Perhaps he wanted to go to night class, travel the world as a sailor, start his own business. Perhaps he figured cab driving was a part-time, something to tide him over. Perhaps he looked at all the other middle-aged men driving cabs and told himself, "I'll never let myself turn into that, God forbid!". But who knows the future?

Then he met a girl, got married, had one kid, then another, and suddenly all those doors closed. He had responsibilities, bills to pay, obligations to keep. All of his dreams evaporated like his breath on a cold morning. And maybe years later he looked in the mirror one morning. He saw the face staring back him with the graying temples and the thinning hair and the dark circles under his eyes and he asked himself, "OMG, where did the last thirty years went?"

But then, he may have told himself, he wasn't that old- only 65.. He could still have dreams. Maybe once the kids are grown-up on their own; maybe once the HDB mortgage is paid off; maybe once the wife and he can finally save a little money and time for themselves.

But first, he told himself, he got to go to the doctor and get his back checked out. Then came the shocking news of his lung cancer and his world shattered instantly. sigh!.

Life can take a sudden turn and we've no control over it no matter how we monitor our health and safety. We all have only one shot at life and nobody knows when it will end. So, before it's too late, let's take stock of our life now. Unfortunately, for poorer Singaporean like taxi drivers, there's no much stock to talk about, when faced with escalating costs of living, scarcity of suitable jobs, no welfare, no money. To us, life is a daily struggle to place three meals on the table, paying household & medical bills and keeping the roof above our head. Don't believe?, join the rank.

I asked Roy how he, himself got into cab driving. He explained that he started as technician in the construction of the MRT lines. After MRT completion, he went driving a cab at 35. Like the rest of us, he thought it would be a part-time thing. But, one thing led to another and fifteen years later, here he is, still driving his yellow cab and surviving two heart attacks!.

Does he ever think about doing something else? "Nah, I don't give it much thought. What can I do at my old age with only a secondary education. Be a guard, cleaner or junk collector? Money not enough. Must drive to live!" Roy answered scornfully.

That's the sad reality of living in the 6th most expensive country in the world. With a 30 years HDB mortgage, children schooling, PUB bills, expensive medicine for chronic illness, etc..etc...and no much help from the authorities, most Singaporean like taxi drivers had to work without retirement till they drop dead. period! I think the only consolation is seeing the children growing up, doing well in studies and hoping they have a good job and a brighter future than themselves.

Away from the depressing reality and morbid subject of death, we kept vigil at the wake for about an hour and tried our best to lessen the grief of Ah Kow's wife. Her two grown up children were asleep beside the coffin. As Ah Kow's family was poor, the length of the wake was a single day to allow for the offering of prayers. A few hours more, Ah Kow will be cremated at Mandai Crematorium.

I spend the rest of the morning in a kind of daze. I keep thinking about those lines: "Get busy living, or get busy driving and dying." and "while we are alive, do we know how to live?. In the end, I think "it matters not how long we live, but how well with whatever we have".

"Our Model Worker. He'll works till his last breath & leaves his CPF to his children "

"Good.
Well done!!".!

Taxi Business in Singapore

Last Friday, around 10pm, I picked an interesting New Zealander at Changi Airport. After loading his single haversack into the trunk of my taxi, we set off to his hostel at Thomson Road, with him seated at my side. He seems like a friendly chap with a constant smile on his face and being a chatty cabby myself, we began an interesting conversation on the journey.

He told me that he purposely came over to Singapore for a week of holiday after his business seminar in Australia. He felt extremely safe here, not like other South East Asian countries or the United States. He further revealed that whenever he takes taxis in New York, there is a 95% chance that the cabby is a new immigrant, who hardly speaks English but it's a reverse here. Life is easy for N.Y. cabbies, he said, as they do not have to ply the streets for 6-8 hours a day and most of the time they sit around waiting for a call booking. Then, without his asking, I began to ran a brief commentary of the reality of taxi business and life of a cabby here for his understanding.

I told him that all taxi drivers here are Singaporeans, as taxi vocational license is be given to Singapore citizen only. I don't know of any other jobs here that has this requirement, where foreigners are not allowed to take up this vocation. Even in strategically important agencies like Temasek Holding, which is responsible for investing billion of dollars of public money, it does not require Singapore citizenship for their Number 1 position. Therefore, either taxi driving is the most privileged job in Singapore or it's the last resort for redundant Singaporean workers. Of course, the former is not true.

I think the over 100,000 Singaporean with vocational taxi license, are all eligible voters. This large number of voters together with their family members, are politically important to the incumbent government and cannot be taken lightly. To lose the astronomical number of cabbies votes is suicidal and therefore, they must be pampered and their vocation protected at all costs, not like some profession with small numbers. Ironically, most cabbies never have good words for the PAP. I'm sure their votes are likewise.   

On the ground and in reality, driving a taxi in Singapore is usually the last resort when a person can't find another suitable job because of old age or after retrenchment. It's not a glamorous or ultra lucrative job. More than half the earnings of a taxi driver goes to the taxi companies as rental and fuel. A taxi driver do not enjoy things like paid annual leave or holidays. Apart from this setback, this is the only job I know where you had to pay for not working.

A typical taxi driver, drives for 10 hours a day and earns about $12 an hour. There is no medical benefits, no CPF and no pension.....Yet you can find plenty of taxi drivers here with a diploma or university education. The taxi companies do all they can to get every taxi rented out to drivers, regardless of the demand on the street. As long as rentals are collected promptly, they do not care how the drivers survive. Can you blame them? No. All companies operate to seek maximum profit, just like the way the PAP runs this place - ("PAP familiar slogon -Where the Money Comes From?"). So every year, SMRT and COMFORT report double digit earnings growth, just like the PAP with impressive GNP.

Now, my point is, Singaporeans are lucky to have some well educated cabbies. Presently, the minimum academic qualification to become a taxi driver here is a Cambridge University "O" level certificate as advertised by Comfort. In many countries, educated citizens are employed as "professionals" in various organizations. But in Singapore, PAP helps all companies with supply of plentiful cheap foreign talents to help fill those "professional" positions, so educated Singaporeans can be freed up to work as cabbies.

In the early seventies, it was usually the illiterate or jobless desperado who drives taxis. But nowadays, more educated and younger Singaporean are becoming cabbies, ladies included. The large influx of foreign talents had taken many jobs which otherwise educated Singaporean can do and surely not because a joker says that a cabby earns $7k a month. I think many jobs in the IT industries, banking & financial sectors, nursing, sales & marketing, just to name a few, are filled by cheap FT, leaving educated Singaporean with few career choices but to consider taxi driving as a viable career. This is really pathetic for Singaporean for many obvious reasons but on the other hand, it's better to be a cabby than jobless, though one has a diploma in hand, right?.

If you visit the National Museum, there is a video of a very young Lee Kuan Yew speaking to a large crowd at a rally in the 1960s. Half way through the speech, he pointed to a young boy in the audience and said "Look at this young boy, he needs an education ...otherwise he will grow up to be a taxi driver". Ironically, today we have highly educated taxi drivers forced to drive taxis due to structural unemployment as PMETs are pushed out of professional jobs by the large influx of foreigners.

Consequently, Singapore is now a First World country with the unique distinction of having a large contingent of educated taxi drivers with at least a secondary school or diploma education. Our Best Airport in the world is now served by an army of most educated taxi drivers in the world. Perhaps this is an achievement that PAP should glorify and boast to the rest of the world too.

At the end of my conversation with my NZ passenger, I nevertheless, expressed my gratitude to this Government for protecting my vocation by not allowing foreigners to drive cabs or else I would probably be collecting cardboard boxes or drinks cans to buy my two meals in this 6th most expensive country in the world. A lot people in their late 50s or early 60s are not quite ready for retirement yet, many find difficulty in getting employment with a reasonable pay because sadly, even simple jobs like cleaners, security guards and traffic warrants are sourced to cheaper foreigners.….So, what suitable jobs are left for old, retrenched and educated Singaporean, like myself? Tell that to your MP and you'll probably get a motherboard and template answers!.

My passenger was impressed with my commentary and allowed me to have a photo shot of him for this posting. Unfortunately, he left without a tip for me except my sour throat.

      NS for Singaporean - Jobs & Scholarships For Foreigners

An Extraordinary Taxi Driver - Ah Lam

Ah Lam - an extraordinary taxi driver

Remember Ah Lam -my taxi buddy- whose taxi was hijacked at the Budget Terminal by a PRC, who then crashed and killed an Indian male cleaner there. (Link).

A year had passed since that tragic incident and what has happened to the people who were involved?. Well, that PRC is still held in remand at The Institute of Mental Health in Bungkok View for observation and a trial had yet to convene. Ah Lam continues with his taxi driving for a living. And the Indian family continues with their lives without a father in J.B. (Update : 16/04/2013 - The PRC had been sentenced to 25 months jail)

In my previous post, I wrote briefly about Ah Lam's humble character but now, I would like to share with you a few things that Ah Lam did, as a taxi driver that makes him the most remarkably kind taxi driver I ever known personally. In my opinion, his simple acts of kindness were most heart warming, inspiring and amazing.

Once, at the beginning of his morning shift, he took an Indian lady from Woodland Estate to Tekka Market in Little India. On reaching the destination, the lady discovered that she had no wallet, cash, credit cards or any valuables, except her cellphone, with her. She was supposed to do her weekend grocery shopping at the market.

Without her asking for help, Ah Lam voluntarily lend her $200 on the spot, so that she could continue her shopping without interruption. He then waited an hour for her to finish her shopping and drove her home eventually. Ah Lam was not worried that with the unsolicited loan of $200, the lady could absconded at first opportunity and abused his kindness and trust in her. She did not, luckily. She honored her obligations and also wrote to Comfort relating Ah Lam's exceptional act of kindness and generosity. Comfort subsequently rewarded Ah Lam with a $50 shopping voucher and featured his story in their newsletter.

Honestly, I could not imagine myself doing what Ah Lam did. I would probably ask the lady to credit the unpaid fare to my bank account later, at her convenience and asked her to get her family members for help. After all, this is Singapore, a small city state of 700 sq. km with world class transport facilities. Quick help is only a phone call away. I'm a decent taxi driver but frankly, I lack Ah Lam's exceptional heart of kindness and generosity in this instance. I'll never give a loan of $200 to a complete stranger, albeit a passenger.

On another occasion, around noon, Ah Lam picked an old lady in her early eighties, sitting alone at a deserted bus stop in Upper Thomson Road. She was dressed in a dark blue shanfu cloths, her hair gathered into a tight bunch at the back of her head, like my late grandmother. She had a walking cane with her and looked frail with a hunched back. She was probably waiting for her bus and did not flag for a taxi.

Nonetheless, on seeing the old lady alone at an empty bus stop, Ah Lam kindheartedly stopped to ask whether she needed help or a free taxi ride home. Most drivers would surely drive pass her without a second look. Not Ah Lam. It turned out that she was abandoned by an earlier taxi driver, as she could not clearly tell the driver her destinations. Unlike the earlier heartless taxi driver, Ah Lam, with a heart of gold, took the feeble and hungry old lady to lunch at a nearby coffee shop and tried to gather as much information about her background and history as possible, so that he could send her home safely. Unfortunately, she had no documents whatsoever with her and could not provide much help. She was dazed and lost in her own world all the time. It soon became apparent that she was a clear case of an old lady suffering from dementia.

Now, what should Ah Lam do? Call the police to take over?. Yes, most taxi drivers and myself would certainly do that!. No, Ah Lam didn't call the police. Instead, he took the old lady to his house in Tampines and decided to spend the rest of his day investigating the old lady actual place of residence!. Wasn't that the dumbest thing to do?. Not to Ah Lam, the man with an extraordinary kind heart.

I asked him why he didn't call the police for help. He explained that the police would not be able the provide the comfort of a home, while they investigate the case. The old lady would also be subjected to unnecessary stress from bureaucratic protocol and could end up in the Institute of Mental Health, like the PRC. Only Ah Lam, with almost divine compassion, would sincerely think of the welfare of the old lady first and place himself in her shoes empathetically.

To cut a long story short, Ah Lam made a few phone calls to all the nursing & old folks homes within 5 kilometers radius of Upper Thomson Road. As luck would have it, Ju Eng Home for Senior Citizen at Jalan Kayu had a missing patient that fits the old lady description. Within an hour, the old lady was reunited with her familiar caregivers at the home.

My daughter had a preview of this story and remarked that it's boring and she could have written the same during her primary school essay assignment. She also questioned the authenticity of the story and wondered whether it was an exaggeration of Ah Lam's character. I reassured her to trust Dad's integrity, like her faith in God.

More importantly, I stressed to my daughter that the moral of this story is there are still a few rare and extraordinary kind people in the mist of our materialistic society. We should find inspirations and emulate the exemplary attributes of their wonderful character, least we are no better than animals without souls. A kind deed a day, makes our misery goes away.

         Acts of Kindness that would make you cry