The baek won drop.
Korean life November 7th. 2009, 10:24pmHaving commuted to work exclusively by subway for the past few years, moving to a job where I needed to rely on above ground transportation once again has started making me notice the quirks of such modes of locomotion. For example, you can measure how well the economy is doing by how closely taxi drivers watch their rate meters.
Korean taxi drivers navigate the streets like madmen, and you are more than happy to pay them just for getting out of the experience alive. Korean taxis do not get tipped. Whatever is on the meter is what you have to pay. More often than not these days the taxi drivers that take me to work, or some place I need to go will cheat me out of my last 100 won. They’ll roll the car forward a bit, delay handing me money, and simply watch the roll over to take that last coin from me.
Today, my wife and daughter were getting out of a back seat, I was in the front seat paying for our ride. We got to our destination and needed to pay 3800 won. I handed the driver 4000 won and expected two 100 won coins to be dropped in my hand. I was holding a diaper bag and wallet and trying to get out of the taxi before he sped off, but he waited for me to turn my head and he intentionally dropped only one 100 hundred won coin for change, then hit the meter as I shut the door and checked my hand.
I’m not one to get in an argument over 100 won. It’s less than 10 cents American. If taxi drivers are having that hard a time to make ends meet that they need to steal 100 won from each fare, they obviously are in dire straights. The entire Korean economy must be in the worse shape it has ever been in since I’ve arrived in Korea. I’ve had taxi drivers do this to me in the past from time to time, but now it seems like 8 out of 10 taxis I get into they have a trick to swipe that one last coin. Has Korea fallen on such hard times that a taxi driver can only survive on these small cons? Is this how a tip based culture begins?
I greatly prefer the bus, where payment is automated and I don’t need to deal with this any more.
One Response to “The baek won drop.”
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November 8th, 2009 at 12:28 am
While I’ve yet to have the ‘baekwon’ experience, I do tend to pay with change instead of simply handing over a large bill. I’d bet, though, that most taxi drivers will short that one coin on the gamble that you won’t make a big deal out of it. Every time, over the course of a shift, though – let’s say 50 times a day – that’s an extra 5,000 won in their pockets per day. Multiply by 6 and there’s an extra meal in a nice restaurant per week. That’s a fair enough reason for me – especially with the foreigner fare.
Start taking the bus – Glow can sit on your lap if need be :)