Archive for April, 2009
5 Topics of conversation your taxi driver is most likely to have with you
Image source: www.costaricapages.com
You’ve caught a ride with them more times then your carpool. You’ve sat in their ride, and paid for their transportation service. Most of the drives are silent and uneventful, with you gazing into the distance while the scenery scrolls on by. Cursory dialogue may include the destination, handing of the fee, and the obligatory thanks (if you’re a really nice person). And then its out the door and into obscurity, the chances of meeting up again pretty low.
Taxis are everywhere, and serve as an important transportation link in our daily lives. If you’ve traveled in a taxi once, you’ve traveled in them all. However, the car doesn’t make the ride. Well. Unless you’re taking the ‘free taxi’ a.k.a. the police van. Rather, it’s the taxi driver who decides whether or not your ride, be it short or road trip, is a memoriable one, via his choice of conversation (should he decide to have one) and topic of discussion.
Now a taxi driver is like a (DAMNITFLYINGCOCKROACHJUMPEDONMYDAMNKEYBOARRRD) barman. They meet all kinds of people. Unlike a barman, a taxi driver doesn’t listen to you, or your problems. Heck, he’s got plenty of his own to worry about, without your tear jerker of a tail about Fiji’s devaluation dollar to think of. Taxi drivers have opinions, stories and if you listen long enough (or if you’re travelling half way around Viti Levu), a moral.
While all taxi drivers are unique in their own right, there are a few common themes of discussion that you’ll notice crop up now and then. Here are the top 5 topics of conversation most likely to come your way in your 5 minute drive:
5) The New Coins
Image source: strangepants.com
This topic will go out of fashion eventually (if you’re still reading this 10 years later and your taxi driver is talking about coins, you’ve won the game), but for now, 9 times out of 10, your driver will mention how funny/wierd/slack/hopeless/set the new coins are. “You have to be careful now aye,” he’ll remark, holding a pile of coins to the light, “you really have to check saraga if the thing 20 cent or 50 cent. They all the same eh?!” At times, they’ll curse at how they’re not used to this whole coin change thing, and other times they’ll marvel at the ingenuity and wonder, “why they never make this before?”.
4) That prostitute
Image source: blogs.pitch.com
Wierd, but given the chance, most taxi drivers will describe having a run in or two with the ladies of the night. And there’s always a story waiting there. “You see that one there?” They’ll point at some obscure lady standing on a street corner in town. “Yeah, that one one pros.” A cheeky hoot of the horn and a shout “Vica?!” (How much?) when you zoom past, with a middle finger is raised towards the laughing driver. “Wooo boy I tell you, that one make plenty money,” a wink, “last week, I been take her and one kaivalagi (caucasian) from Traps to Motel 6. Ha! Tamani action happening there!” a thump on the horn, a grin, and you can probably fill in the gaps. Or, if you’re game enough, ask for details.
3) Job
Image source: www.nuffy.net
Driving a taxi is hard work. Sure, the driver sits in a car all day, ferrying people from A to B. But aside from all that sitting (you try doing that without getting a break and see how your behind likes it), there’s the daily (or weekly) vehicle rent that the boss demands from the driver. Good earnings mean that the boss can be paid and there’s enough for living expenses after. If not, then its back on the road again. “Boy, sometimes business slow, and I don’t have enough to pay the boss for the day. So I have to keep driving, driving, driving till I can get the money to pay the falla,” he’ll sigh, “by that time, I’ll be tired, so I go home. Tomorrow, I hope plenty people catch taxi so I can get better money.” Besides the money, there’s also the safety concerns to be dealt with. Robberies, runaway customers, and drunktards not paying their bill all make driving a taxi anything but a walk in the park. Or drive. One driver commented, “You see this?” He pulled out a screw driver from the side of the car door, “if someone want to grab my neck, I take this and go -” he makes a stabbing motion with the screw driver. “That’s for my own safety boy. Danger out there you know? Have to protect yourself.”
2) LTA
Image source: www.fiji.gov.fj
The very bane of every taxi driver, the Land Transport Authority gets nothing but discontent and all round unhappiness if given the chance to comment on. I have never met a taxi driver who didn’t have something nice to say about them. Of course, that may be just me, but still, that’s got to amount to something. Ranging from comments about money and all its variations of evil, to curses best left unblogged, when it comes to having an opinion about LTA, most taxi drivers have but one. They hates it like Gollum on a ring losing day.
1) Weather
Image source: www.edu.dudley.gov.uk
The classic conversation starter, the topic opener in most generic rides, and well known ice breaker. Usually the driver will wait until you’ve settled in on the ride, and casually toss a remark, “slack weather eh?” To which you have a choice, to either take the bait and open up conversation with him, or grunt and be the anti-social person that you are. “This the hurricane season now,” a wise, almost sage-like nod, “that’s why the weather thing playing up all this time. Rain, sun, rain, sun, sun, rain, thing up and down.” Mostly topics on the weather stay generic and vague, but now and then you get the real weatherman deal. “I tell you boy, this weather, thing because of the global warning.” He’ll wiggle his finger, expertly changing gears in the middle of making his most important point of the day, “It’s all this fires and pollution. Eh? Eh? You see these gang cutting the trees down? That. Affects. Us. All saraga.”
Have you had a conversation with a taxi driver that was worth noting?
Action! Comedy! Suspense! (Soft)Porn! Comsol has it all!
I stopped by the old neighbourhood video/dvd store Comsol this afternoon, interested in what new additions they had in their library. Their stock is updated weekly, and while their range encompasses mostly A and B grade movies that either have already passed through the cinemas or are currently screening (and are generally labeled CCC, which I can only assume stands for Crappy Cinema Copy), now and then I notice a few movies, usually small indie flicks, that are not exactly your standard blockbuster fare, somehow making it into their weekly lineup. Generally, this is what I look forward to whenever I visit the store, but I do pay attention to my testosterone side and snag the occassional action mash up.
Comsol displays their latest range of movies by pasting A4 printouts of the movie’s poster onto a wall facing the front desk, which helps newcomers get up to speed with their latest offerings. Relaxing at the front, I browsed through the posters, mentally noting which ones were of interest, when I came across this:
Image source: www.wikipedia.org
No, this isn’t some B-grade rip-off from the actual Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. Though in hindsight, it could be viewed as such. What this movie is, to be precise, is the biggest, most expensive adult film, made in 2005, and is basically about a bunch of “ragtag sailors who go searching for a crew of evil pirates who have a plan for world domination. Also, many of the characters in the movie have sex with one another.”
Mind you, the trailer for the movie is SFW. Mostly 
Yep, thats correct. Right in front of me, pasted besides such familiar standard fare moviestock such as “Choke” and “Red Cliff” was an actual proper porn movie, in full and dare I say normal, display. Needless to say, I was taken aback by such boldness on Comsol’s part. I mean, granted, porn is one of the main money makers for many video stores for years, but it was always very subtle and secret like. Awhile back, when the Balu Khan sex tape was doing the rounds, video stores would have their own copies, but were always distributed under the table, so to say. So if you wanted to watch that particular video, you sorta had to whisper for ‘balu khan’, and next thing you know, you’ve got your own copy.
While I was still trying to comprehend what was infront of me, another customer on my right was already one step of me, and had inquired about the movie.
“Can I also get that movie there, Pirates please? Pirates? That’s pirates ga the pirate movie?” He asked.
Yes, I silently agreed. Pray tell, which Pirate movie are we talking about here? In a way, probably more out of disbelief, I was hoping that somehow, someone had mistakenly printed out the wrong (read: porn) version of the Pirates movie, and had just settled for this one, instead of the more family oriented friendly version we’ve all come to know and love.
The attendant, a young fijian guy, pointed to the poster.
“This one?”
“Yeah, that one.” The customer squinted, “Is it Pirates part one or part two?”
I was curious. Part one or part two? Did he even know there was a part three?
“Nope,” the attendant confirmed confidently, “this one is part one. Us gang only have part one for now.”
“Set. I’ll take it.” And with that, he walked off with his own copy of pirate porn (literally). I surpressed the urge to laugh and ask the customer if he knew exactly what he was taking home, but decided to instead just ask if what was on display was really what I thought it was.
“Hey bro,” I motioned to the attendant, trying to look cool and indifferent, “that movie, Pirates, what’s that movie about?”
A slight smile crept in his somewhat poker face, “oh that movie. Thing about pirates and stuff. Kila?”
I narrowed my eyes, hinting that I wasn’t quite the fool he made me out to be. “Pirates ga thing one porno movie?”
The slight smile morphed into a grin. “Eah. That one.”
“Ah.”
NOTE: Upon closer inspection, the “Pirates” poster had a ‘R18′ stenciled on it. A cursory glance at the movie’s wiki page reveals that the pornographic movie had two versions, the standard “Bangalot” version, and the more sanitised (when is a porn not a porn? When it’s R18 ) R-rated version. Two guesses as to which version was actually being sold and displayed for all to see? Of course, what’s stopping them from actually having both versions? 
) R-rated version. Two guesses as to which version was actually being sold and displayed for all to see? Of course, what’s stopping them from actually having both versions? The plot thickens…
Fiji has no government. Believe it.
Image source: www.fijitimes.com.fj
In political news (something which I keep a rather safe distance from in this blog most of the time), the prime minister formerly known as Laisenia Qarase has won a rather important court case against the current prime minister and entourage. The court case decided that the unlawful removal of the Qarase and his squad during the most relaxing coup ever a.k.a. the 2006 coup was illegal, and has basically directed the President to start the process of election all over again. Queue the victory lap. Unfortunately, Qarase’s lawyers request that Qarase be reinstated as Prime Minister was barred, so no fun there.
Bainimarama addressed the nation in a televised spot, saying that as of now, Fiji has no government in place, as the court ruling has basically dissolved the current regime. We all have to wait now on what the President will decide next. In the meantime, Bainimarama has assured the public that there will be no “disruption to law and order”. I quickly banished thoughts of looting the local shopping mall during the imaginary riots. To be honest though, I’m actually glad there wasn’t anything in the way of disturbance to the peace happening after the court ruling since I don’t really like police or army checkpoints. They interrupt my driving speed/flow.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens next, given the current state of things.
For more articles on the ruling, check out Stuck in Fiji M.U.D.
UPDATE: Oh. After coming back from a trip to the beach, I’ve found out that the Constitution has been given the heave ho, Fiji is now under Emergency Rule, the election date has been set to 2014 at the latest, and the old interim government is now the new interim government again. Okay. I guess everything old is new again.
My run-in with the Law and how not to catch a taxi
Image source: TVNZ
Ok this didn’t happen recently, but rather a few years ago, back when I was a tad bit more into grog then I am now (yes..yes I was ) and we’d stay up late nights on the weekends playing guitar and drinking grog.
On this particular night, we had just finished a jam session at around 3 in the morning. I was tired, grog doped, and in need of willful unconsciousness. After farewelling my fellow band members, I walked (read: staggered, struggled, nearly crawled) to the road to catch a taxi home.
Now picture this. Its the weekend. Casual weekend. I’ve been at a friends place for awhile, and all i had were the clothes i brought on my back from home. Which, suffice to say, made me look like i was on my way to the community garden. I was wearing a singlet, brown and slightly tattered t-shirt. My pants was a 3 quarters hand-me-downs, also brown, and torn at the bottom. I had draped my towel over my shoulders. My hair, which hadn’t seen the sharp edge of a pair of scissors in months, was long enough to make me look like a member of a hard rock band that worships Satan on mondays, wednesdays and fridays, and attends mass on a sunday.
I was a sight. You can just imagine. Now, imagine me, looking the way i did, staggering along the road, concentrating on placing one foot in front of the other (left foot forward!….hold…right foot forward!….hold…), and at the same time trying to stop a taxi. In Fiji there is a general rule when it comes to catching taxis. The later the night, the more scary up you look….the less chances there are of catching a taxi. In my case, it was like winning the lottery by dipping a roach in ink and letting it scratch out the numbers itself.
But catch a taxi I did. In fact, by the time i reached the road, the first vehicle to approach me was a taxi. Tonight was my lucky night I waved at the taxi, and he stopped. As I got in, I took a glance at my would be chauffeur. I couldn’t have picked a more worse driver.
This guy was young, tiny, and obviously a first timer in this parts. He was dressed up to go clubbing, and not to drive a taxi at 3 in the morning. He was of small stature, and nervously gripped the wheel as I dropped my body in the backseat…directly behind him. Now, there is another well known rule about taxis in fiji. The person who sits directly behind you if you’re the driver, is the person most likely to rob you if said person looked thuggish enough. Period. And I just happened to chose that exact spot.
“Where to boss?” he nervously quipped.
Of course, I wasn’t paying attention to all these trouble signals. Hell I just wanted to go home. So, after slamming the door, i glared at him through the rear view mirror, and muttered “Nakasi”.
Big mistake number one was getting in the taxi behind mr driver. Big mistake two was acting like I was bad boy from the streets, and worse, looking the part. Big mistake number three, which was entirely my fault, was to give him a bad look. As we were driving along, I kept noticing how the driver was nervously glancing my way throught the rear view mirror. This got really annoying, to the point where the next time he looked, I looked back at him and scowled. Real smart as I was about to find out.
We eventually came to a policepoint. Nothing special about police checkpoints, since they have them all over the place. This was mainly to catch drunken drivers and…well…just drunken drivers. I don’t think wanted criminals would be stupid enough to drive through one of those checkpoints.
As we approached the checkpoint, I noticed the driver glance at me one more time. Inwardly, I groaned. This guy was really starting to piss me – wait…we were stopping. Why were we stopping? The police guys didn’t wave us down…oh oh.
A single policeman approached the taxi. This time I sat up, shook the grogginess from my eyes, and blinked.
“Why are we stopping driver?” I asked.
He didn’t look back at me this time. Something was definitely up.
“What happen?” asked the policeman as he came on the left side of the car, shining the torch inside.
“Hey boso”, pleaded the driver, while shooting a nervous look back at me, “Can you sit with me as I take this falla?”
“Why”, the policeman replied, “where you taking him?”
“Nakasi.”
While this was going on, it still didn’t ring in my thick skull that I was being held in criminal regard, and that if I didn’t play it right, I could be sleeping on the floor for the night in some police cell.
At this moment, the policeman swung his torch to the back where I was sitting.
“Oi,” he yelled, the gruffness in his voice definitely not portraying the polite police banter i was so used to seeing in the movies.
The torch was shining directly into my eyes, and the effect was quite intimidating. I raised my hand to block out the light, but it turned out that was the wrong thing to do.
“OI!” he yelled again, this time with more effect, “put your hands down!”
Immediately my hands dropped, and I squinted in the harsh light, feeling very very small indeed.
There was a pause as the policeman scrutinzed me. I felt like I was already on the lineup of suspects, the harsh white light, the lines behind the wall, the card I had to hold up which had my identity on it, the voice tests, the -
“Hey, you that falla who always visit your friend near the police post?”
I have a friend who stays near a police post. Every time I pass by, I wave at the officers who know me by face. Usually they’re are sitting down around a bowl of grog, enjoying the slow evening and yarning away.
Apparently, this policeman was one of the guys posted at that particular area, and had recognized me as a regular visitor to my friends place.
“Trues up! You that falla who always visit your friend near our post eh?” The policeman pointed the torch down and continued with a big smile, “oooh driver this falla set falla saraga. He no problem boy. Just go just go. Falla set.” With that he waved the driver on and gave me a thumbs up.
I sighed with relief at my close (not my first mind you) brush with the authorities. Then it hit me. The bloody driver thought i was going to rob him!
Me? Gentle soul me? Dear Mister blogger who wouldn’t kill a fly (though I did have a habit of catching them when I was small and burning their wings off…hmmm…), let alone even consider attempted robbery. Good lord! The nerve! I couldn’t even throw a punch to hit a person, let alone knock them out enough to run off with something. I mean, the last time I ever punched someone was way back in class 6, and that was over some argument about skipping in line. I’m a good boy! I swear!
…
I had to check with the driver just to make sure.
I tapped the driver on the shoulder as we settled into the drive.
“Driver, do I look like the kind of person who would rob you?”
And without skipping a beat, he looked me straight in the eye and smiled nervously.
“Yes”.
Dammit.
Tribe Un-wanted
I was browsing through the papers during the week when I came across this full page advert.
Nothin much in the way of ‘noteworthy’ you might say. Large picture of movie’s heroes (or in this case, heroine) – check. “Grand Opening Today in Village 6″ title at the top – check. Top movie critics giving the movie their undivided love – chec – wait. What’s this?
Ok lets back up abit here. LA Times as a revered movie critic. That I can understand. Yahoo.com? They’ve certainly got the web space, as well as the reviews to show for it. But what is this ‘tribe.com.fj’? Judging by its .fj address, I warranted a local website, possibly trying to cash in on the movie’s hype by dropping in its own seat blowing thumbs up one liner.
The commendation for the movie from the website made me grimace. “A 3D Animation”? To call a 3d film a ’3d animation’ is to miss out on the opportunity to use the word “MOVIE”. Also, the seat blowing action reference is, well, to put it in a more polite term, lame. I was determined to get behind this movie review, or find out who reviewed the movie with such a great grip on catchy word usage.
Investigatory skills in tow, I headed over to www.tribe.com.fj, expecting, well, not really knowing what to expect.
“Welcome to the TRIBE”. I certainly felt like I was in tribe land, with totems and flashy graphics aplenty. Ignoring everything else, I headed straight for the movie section, where clicking on the “Monsters vs Aliens” link gave me this:
Visions of long, flowery essays glorifying the spaztastic eye candy and chair blowing action that was Monsters vs Aliens quickly faded from my head when all I was greeted with was a copy paste movie synopsis straight from the movie’s IMDB page:
“When a meteorite from outer space hits a young girl and turns her into a giant monster, she is taken to a secret government compound where she meets a ragtag group of monsters also rounded up over the years.”
Needless to say, I was most disappointed. I wanted my action quote! I wanted my ‘blow you out of your freaken goddamn chair’ line! I wanted a local movie reviewer who resorts to downsizing animated movies to a mere ’3D animation’ because quite frankly, thats what all 3d animated movies are! I wanted something that at least required a tad bit more effort then Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V! I want an actual movie review from an actual person, and not some lie drawn up on the Fiji Times page!
Granted, the tribe one liner was a mere ploy to get people to the tribes website. I mean, sure, I can understand, it’s as they say, strictly business. But please, if you’re going to lead the flock astray to your website, make it worth their (and not forgetting my) while and have some content thats at least original.
-
You are currently browsing the archives for April, 2009
Featured Posts
Subscribe
Stat Counter
Translator
Recent Comments