On the streets of Xiamen in March, cold winds gusted. At seven o’clock in the evening, the sky had just darkened, and they were already waiting by the restaurant with their bicycles. After a while, people who were full of food and drinks walked out of the restaurant one after another, and their "nightlife" officially began.
Walking through the night, they have to carry up and down folding bicycles weighing 30 or 40 catties; working in the dark, their customers are mostly drunk men… Recently, our reporter approached the group of female drivers, followed them to take orders and listen to their stories. Today, we present the most authentic life conditions of female drivers through the narratives of Xiaoxiao, Amei and Aqi.
Female chauffeurs are already a large group in Xiamen. The picture shows Amei at work. (Photos from this group/Photo by reporter Huang Rong)
[Misunderstood]
The customer heard a female voice and thought he made the wrong call.
Because there are not many female chauffeurs, they are often regarded as "rare animals".
When some customers heard the female voice, they immediately said, I’m sorry, I made a typo. After learning that there was indeed no typo, they explained again and again. After calling for a driver for several years, they had never met a woman and thought they had made a typo. There was a male customer driving a Porsche who saw a female chauffeur and said "hi": "He asked me to try the performance of the car and drive 200km/h to Xiamen Bridge. I didn’t listen to him and controlled the speed at 60 kilometers per hour. He was furious and asked me, do you know how pigs died, and I replied, stupid; he said, no, disobedient to death." Then, the male customer said again: Unfortunately, I drive a Porsche of more than one million. If it is a car of 200,000 or 300,000, I will let you drive it directly home.
[Being harassed]
The drunkard moved his hands and feet, and asked her to "introduce Miss"
"Young women are not very suitable for this line of work," Ah Mei said bluntly. Female drivers mostly take orders at night, and the customers are mostly men who drink too much. As she got older, she said, "it’s safer and less troublesome." Even so, Ah Mei still encountered a lot of troubles.
In early March, two drunken male customers were going to Hexu Li, but when they saw that a female driver was coming, they immediately changed their minds and went to find "Miss", and asked her if she had any sisters to do this. "Seeing that Ah Mei said no, a man in the back seat reached out to touch her face: I see if there are any wrinkles on your face. When they got to the place, Ah Mei stopped the car and took off the bicycle." One man snatched my bicycle directly and wanted to try it, and the other man came directly and wanted to hug me and asked me to take him to find’Miss’. "Ah Mei pushed the male customer away, angry, tired, and aggrieved all welled up in her heart. However, the next day, the male client called Amei to apologize, which helped her balance a lot, but instead comforted them not to take it to heart.
36-Year-old Aqi had a similar experience. Once, when she arrived on her bicycle, the man who called for the driver was already drunk, and there was a male companion in his 20s next to her. Seeing a female driver, the young man stuffed his drunk friend into the back seat of the car and got into the co-pilot himself. As soon as the car started, the young man came up with a smile on his face, "Sister, you still dare to come out and take orders so late." Seeing Aqi’s silence, the boy became more "arrogant" and his hands and feet began to be dishonest. At that time, in July and August, the young man reached out and touched Aqi’s armpit. Aqi was so angry that he warned, "I can be your aunt at my age, so you can take care of yourself." The young man didn’t listen and "moved" his hands several times. Aqi finally broke out and scolded the other party, "The steering wheel is in my hands, do you still want to be safe!" Hearing this, the young man was so frightened that he withdrew his hand.
[Being tracked]
Male colleague with ulterior motives uses location sharing to find her home
It was disturbing enough to encounter customers who moved their hands and feet. Aqi never expected that some male chauffeurs would be "unrelenting" to her.
Since all the chauffeurs were on the same work platform and could see the location information of their colleagues, the rare female chauffeurs naturally became the "object of attention" of their male colleagues. "Most of the male colleagues still take good care of me, but there are always some who make uncomfortable jokes under the banner of’caring ‘with ulterior motives."
Aqi told reporters that when he first started driving, only three or four of them were customers’ orders in one night, and the other 10 or so were "condolence calls" from nearby male colleagues. Because it was a work number, Aqi had to answer.
Among them, the one with less "lethality" was a sarcastic sentence, "Why does a woman work so hard? Does she have no husband at home?"
These words were like sharp knives stabbing in Aqi’s heart, "I also rely on my own ability to make money hard, why do you think of me so unbearably."
In January this year, a male chauffeur was "monitoring" Aqi’s whereabouts all the time, and even chased after Aqi’s door and stalked her. Finally, Aqi had to call the police for help.
[Being taken care of]
The customer was afraid that she would not be able to return home, so he specially called a car to take her home
However, there are also heartwarming moments.
On the last order before the Spring Festival, at around 8pm, Amei sent a male customer to Jinjiang. As soon as he got on the bus, the male customer saw a female chauffeur and asked, how can you go back to Xiamen so far away. "I don’t have a bottom line," Hearing Amei’s answer, the male customer made seven or eight calls along the way to contact the car back to Xiamen for her, and didn’t feel relieved until he found it. "He said that if I were a man, he would give up after making two calls at most, but I am a woman. I am afraid that I will not be able to return to Xiamen, and I will not be willing to stay in a hotel, and I will wait on the roadside until dawn." In order to make Ameido some money, the male customer also specially let her take a long detour.
Another time, it was raining at night, and Ah Mei had to drive for a man and a woman. Because of the rain, she was afraid that the bicycle would wet the customer’s car. Ah Mei laid a cushion on the passenger’s trunk in the rain, and then put the bicycle in. Then she opened the driver’s door and took out the seat cover, for fear of getting the seat wet. The male customer is Taiwanese, and he was afraid that she would get wet, so he kept saying it was okay and got on the bus quickly. Seeing Ah Mei’s insistence, the male customer gave a thumbs up: I didn’t expect the service in the mainland to be first-class. After getting off the bus, the male customer also gave her an umbrella. There are many such moments, and every time I think of it, Ah Mei will feel warm in my heart. (At the request of the interviewee, the female drivers in the text are all pseudonyms)
[Lens]
Take 9 orders in one night and finish work at 4am
At 9 o’clock the night before, at the entrance of a seafood shop near Ershi City, Xiaoxiao pushed the folding bicycle and walked towards us. After receiving the driving order every night, Xiaoxiao rode it to the customer, folded it, and carried it to the trunk of the customer’s car. After delivering the customer to the destination, Xiaoxiao carried it off and continued on the road. Every night around 6 o’clock, Xiaoxiao would ride a bicycle to a place with a lot of traffic and wait for the order.
We followed Xiaoxiao to send a customer to Lianhua Village, but the bicycle couldn’t be folded. Xiaoxiao was anxious and squatted on the ground for about ten minutes, "really embarrassing". That night, she took 9 orders and didn’t finish work until 4 am the next day. Riding a bicycle, she returned home from the second phase of the software park to Fanghu Road.
[Data]
growth rate of driving
Xiamen ranks third in the country
Xiamen’s driving market is dominated by e-driving and Didi driving. According to the big data released by e-driving, Xiamen ranked third in the growth rate of driving in major cities across the country in 2015, with a growth rate of 141%.
Xiamen two major driving merchants
There are more than 700 female chauffeurs
Four months after the e-driving service opened in Xiamen, the first woman to register has been welcomed, and this group has now grown to more than 500 people. Among Didi’s drivers, there are currently 226 female drivers. Combined with the data of Didi’s drivers and e-drivers, the proportion of female drivers in Xiamen is close to 10%.
Female drivers are more popular
The take-up rate is twice as high as that of men
Although the number of female drivers is small, they are quite popular. For example, some women will "name" and ask for female drivers. Data provided by e-driving shows that between 6 and 11 pm, "online" female drivers receive 1.9 times as many orders as male drivers.
[Voice]
"It’s a lie to say you’re not afraid"
Almost all customers will ask me: Are you not afraid of being a female driver? It is false to say that you are not afraid, but when driving a customer’s car, the steering wheel and accelerator are under my control, and generally they will not do anything to me. – Aqi
I don’t think it’s okay about safety. Xiamen people are of good quality, and I have fitness. But I didn’t tell my parents that I was a female driver, for fear that they would be worried. But after my sister found out, she asked me to bring some "anti-wolf weapons". – – Xiaoxiao (Text/Reporter, Wang Yuting, Huang Xiaofang)
