{"id":2382,"date":"2005-03-26T20:33:22","date_gmt":"2005-03-27T03:33:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2005\/03\/26\/jonathan-watts-where-cabbies-are-cheery-but-skint\/"},"modified":"2005-03-26T20:33:22","modified_gmt":"2005-03-27T03:33:22","slug":"jonathan-watts-where-cabbies-are-cheery-but-skint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2005\/03\/jonathan-watts-where-cabbies-are-cheery-but-skint\/","title":{"rendered":"Jonathan Watts: Where cabbies are cheery but skint"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\nFrom the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/international\/story\/0,,1445846,00.html\">Guardian<\/a>:\n<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nBeijing has some of the most downtrodden taxi drivers on the planet. According to the China Daily, the average cabbie works 106 hours a week, and takes home only 1,817 renminbi (\u00ac\u00a3120) a month.<\/p>\n<p>Even as China&#8217;s economy steams ahead, their earning potential is slowing down. <a href=\"\/2004\/09\/china_to_have_1.php\">Traffic volume has doubled<\/a> in less than five years. On the average day, they are stuck in jams for at least three hours, when the meter clicks forward only 1 renminbi (7p) for every five minutes.<\/p>\n<p>A limit on the number of licences and the absence of unions give Beijing&#8217;s 200 <a href=\"http:\/\/english.people.com.cn\/200411\/25\/eng20041125_165141.html\">taxi companies an unfair advantage<\/a> over their employees. The city&#8217;s 66,000 drivers must pay more than half of their fares to their bosses and another quarter on fuel and repairs.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\nSee a previous Washington Post article on cabbies&#8217; rights <a href=\"\/2005\/02\/edward_cody_bei.php\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the Guardian: Beijing has some of the most downtrodden taxi drivers on the planet. According to the China Daily, the average cabbie works 106 hours a week, and takes home only 1,817 renminbi (\u00ac\u00a3120) a month. Even as China&#8217;s economy steams ahead, their earning potential is slowing down. Traffic volume has doubled in less [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[5811,1052,823,1053],"class_list":["post-2382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-society","tag-beijing","tag-cabbies","tag-taxi-drivers","tag-taxis","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v23.9 (Yoast SEO v23.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Jonathan Watts: Where cabbies are cheery but skint<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2005\/03\/jonathan-watts-where-cabbies-are-cheery-but-skint\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jonathan Watts: Where cabbies are cheery but skint\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"From the Guardian: Beijing has some of the most downtrodden taxi drivers on the planet. According to the China Daily, the average cabbie works 106 hours a week, and takes home only 1,817 renminbi (\u00ac\u00a3120) a month. Even as China&#8217;s economy steams ahead, their earning potential is slowing down. Traffic volume has doubled in less [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2005\/03\/jonathan-watts-where-cabbies-are-cheery-but-skint\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"China Digital Times (CDT)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ChinaDigitalTimes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2005-03-27T03:33:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/CDT-logo.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"186\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"177\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sophie Beach\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@cdt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@cdt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sophie Beach\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2005\/03\/jonathan-watts-where-cabbies-are-cheery-but-skint\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2005\/03\/jonathan-watts-where-cabbies-are-cheery-but-skint\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Sophie Beach\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#\/schema\/person\/7f19e31b674d57a7dc20aab8e908c663\"},\"headline\":\"Jonathan Watts: Where cabbies are cheery but skint\",\"datePublished\":\"2005-03-27T03:33:22+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2005-03-27T03:33:22+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2005\/03\/jonathan-watts-where-cabbies-are-cheery-but-skint\/\"},\"wordCount\":142,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"Beijing\",\"cabbies\",\"taxi drivers\",\"taxis\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Economy\",\"Society\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2005\/03\/jonathan-watts-where-cabbies-are-cheery-but-skint\/\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2005\/03\/jonathan-watts-where-cabbies-are-cheery-but-skint\/\",\"name\":\"Jonathan Watts: Where cabbies are cheery but skint\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2005-03-27T03:33:22+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2005-03-27T03:33:22+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2005\/03\/jonathan-watts-where-cabbies-are-cheery-but-skint\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2005\/03\/jonathan-watts-where-cabbies-are-cheery-but-skint\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2005\/03\/jonathan-watts-where-cabbies-are-cheery-but-skint\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Jonathan Watts: Where cabbies are cheery but skint\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/\",\"name\":\"China Digital Times (CDT)\",\"description\":\"Covering China from Cyberspace\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#organization\",\"name\":\"China Digital Times\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/CDT-logo.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/CDT-logo.jpg\",\"width\":186,\"height\":177,\"caption\":\"China Digital Times\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ChinaDigitalTimes\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/cdt\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#\/schema\/person\/7f19e31b674d57a7dc20aab8e908c663\",\"name\":\"Sophie Beach\",\"description\":\"Sophie Beach is CDT's Operations and Communications Manager. 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