China the Beautiful

[chinapage]

An example that language is living and evolving:
what's the Chinese word for a taxi driver?

In Beijing and Shanghai at least it is 的哥 dige

This came to my attention by way of some blog
reports about a taxi driver and his lectures to
the MBA class of Microsoft, and an interesting
song: Ode to the 的哥

http://www.hn.xinhuanet.com/2006-03/24/content_6561680.htm

http://www.chinapage.com/sound/mp3/20070418160524.mp3

[boomcha]

yes, the man is quite smart

taxi = 出租车 or 的士
driver = 司机

taxi driver = 出租车司机 or 的哥
的哥 is more often used in North China, i'm afraid(?).


call/take a taxi = 打的 or 差头 ( the latter is used in shanghai and origins from "charter". It's Yangjingpang English.)
_________________
boomcha, discotheque

[Aolung]

taxi = 出租车 or 的士
driver = 司机
taxi driver = 出租车司机

All these are listed in my dictionaries as being quite common words.

的哥

This one is given as "slang"

[chinapage]

"Yangjingbang (洋泾浜 ) creek" because Chinese and Western merchants habitually talked business at a place near the creek, communicating in pidgin," Yangjingbang" came to stand for pidgin English. Some pidgin English are still in use though, such as "long time no see".

Yangjingbang is the name of a creek in the French Concession part of the
Huangpo River in Shanghai.

[Aolung]

Dear Ming,

thanks for enlightening me etymologically. For some weird reason, I couldn't retrieve the word in my dictionaries yesterday - today, it's there

Best regards

Alfred

P-S. That taxi driver song is cute: are there the lyrics somewhere? Maybe on Youtube?

[boomcha]

[Aolung]

Thanx a lot!

A.

[jorosh20]

I should ask my chinese friend to answer this question.

thanks...........................................
_________________
http://makemoneyonline.net.ph/

[nancyxu]

taxi driver: 司机/ sī jī taxi: 出租车/ chū zū chē
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