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This cabbie gives 5-star tours
By Xu Wenwen |
March 23, 2010, Tuesday
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JERRY Zhou first started driving a taxi back in 1997. He had a high-school degree and shaky English, but he was enthusiastic and a quick learner. Today he has become a Shanghai brand for driver, bilingual translator and guide. Xu Wenwen reports.
A tour guide, translator and local driver help travelers get around foreign countries when they don't speak the language. English-speaking Hangzhou taxi driver Jerry Zhou offers "three in one" in Hangzhou.
Zhou, 34, is the author of the "Hangzhou Taxi Drivers' English Brochure," but he is also a taxi driver with high school education who has shown thousands of foreign visitors around the city, showing the sites and explaining the customs.
Zhou has been conducting one- and two-day tours around the city since 2003. His ability, his enthusiasm and can-do attitude have won him many foreign fans and many became friends.
Some even invited him to work abroad, promised him a good life and offered to sponsor the kind-hearted, chatty, funny and helpful cabbie.
But he has declined the invitations, saying, "It's my duty to promote Hangzhou's tourism image."
His story has been reported by dozens of media in China and abroad, including Discovery Magazine and CTV. He has been called a grassroots ambassador running a one-man travel agency. He jokingly says he aims to be "Jack Ma" (CEO of Alibaba) of local tourism.
Zhou, who has a round face and wears black-rimmed glasses, is booked through the end of April. His customers are mainly foreign travelers and businessmen, many of them staying in five-star hotels.
Many clients have praised his "five-star" service in letters to the hotels. Zhou says he's good at observing what customers want and always trying to give them the best.
In the morning, he checks his booking e-mails, picks up customers at the airport or train station and guides them during the day. During his free time, in good weather, he chats with foreigners near the West Lake to practice his American-accented English.
But when Zhou first started driving a taxi in 1997, he was a high school graduate who spoke poor English. He once picked a foreign couple who wanted to go the airport, but he didn't know the word "airport." They gestured, he got the idea, and remembered.
From that day on he made up his mind to learn English because he didn't want to give Hangzhou taxi drivers a bad name.
He taught himself, watching many English-language movies and listening to songs to imitate the accent. He practiced on tourists strolling around and even bought an English dictionary that he carried around with him. He even took it with him to the toilet at home.
Determined
He has some hilarious stories to tell about learning.
He once wanted to explain customers that he needed to fill up the car but didn't know how to say, so he said: "My car is hungry. It needs to drink some oil." Customers laughed and helped him learn to express himself.
"I have to be brave to make mistakes while I am learning," Zhou says.
Zhou once quit his job as a taxi driver and tried his hand at other interests, but he got back behind the wheel again in 2003. His business card describes him as "guide, driver, translator and friend."
Good work has made Zhou famous among expatriates. Zhou also gains trust from his customers; sometimes he drives old customers at no charge; he also introduces customers to other drivers, saying, "Where there is a loss, there is also a gain."
In 2007, a French photographer couple wanted to charter his cab for one month, Zhou's standard charge was 800 yuan (US$117) per day back then. They asked for half-price because they were short of money and showed him a book, "China in the Mirror" that they shot in China.
If he took the business, he could earn 12,000 that month. But he was so impressed with the photos that showed China's connections between modern and ancient times that he contacted the Hangzhou City Travel Committee, which arranged a free trip for the photographers.
"Every foreign traveler is a window telling others about Hangzhou, and these people came to the city to promote it, so how can I take their money?" says Zhou.
Zhou's motto: enjoy life, enjoy work. "When I'm happy, they are happy."
"Almost all my clients promote me when they are back to their countries," says Zhou. " If I go to America, I would have a friend welcoming me in every big city."
Zhou has reasons to boast - every one of his customers was smiling throughout the whole trip to the former mansion of Hu Xueyuan, a businessman who started famous Hu Qing Yu Tang TCM pharmacy, according to staff at the residence.
Intrigue
He doesn't just tell history or explain customs, he first intrigues the travelers. "They experience the custom, then they learn the history," said a member of the residence staff.
When describing an antique bed, Zhou first asks visitors what it's for. They say it's for sleeping; he corrects them, "It's for smoking opium." Describing a luxury sedan chair, he calls it ancient China's BMW.
Once a tourist asked him how to say "I love you" in Chinese ("wo ai ni"). Zhou pointed to a wall, then to his eye, then to his knee and told the visitor to say them together. "Wall eye knee" sounds similar.
As a successful "three in one" cab driver for years, Zhou now plans a bilingual taxi driver league with branches in Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province and Hangzhou, four must-see cities. Now he is trying to recruit more drivers like him and give "five-star guide, translation and drive tours."
"Money is not made by hands, but by brains," says Zhou. "Anyone who works hard and perseveres can do what I do."
A tour guide, translator and local driver help travelers get around foreign countries when they don't speak the language. English-speaking Hangzhou taxi driver Jerry Zhou offers "three in one" in Hangzhou.
Zhou, 34, is the author of the "Hangzhou Taxi Drivers' English Brochure," but he is also a taxi driver with high school education who has shown thousands of foreign visitors around the city, showing the sites and explaining the customs.
Zhou has been conducting one- and two-day tours around the city since 2003. His ability, his enthusiasm and can-do attitude have won him many foreign fans and many became friends.
Some even invited him to work abroad, promised him a good life and offered to sponsor the kind-hearted, chatty, funny and helpful cabbie.
But he has declined the invitations, saying, "It's my duty to promote Hangzhou's tourism image."
His story has been reported by dozens of media in China and abroad, including Discovery Magazine and CTV. He has been called a grassroots ambassador running a one-man travel agency. He jokingly says he aims to be "Jack Ma" (CEO of Alibaba) of local tourism.
Zhou, who has a round face and wears black-rimmed glasses, is booked through the end of April. His customers are mainly foreign travelers and businessmen, many of them staying in five-star hotels.
Many clients have praised his "five-star" service in letters to the hotels. Zhou says he's good at observing what customers want and always trying to give them the best.
In the morning, he checks his booking e-mails, picks up customers at the airport or train station and guides them during the day. During his free time, in good weather, he chats with foreigners near the West Lake to practice his American-accented English.
But when Zhou first started driving a taxi in 1997, he was a high school graduate who spoke poor English. He once picked a foreign couple who wanted to go the airport, but he didn't know the word "airport." They gestured, he got the idea, and remembered.
From that day on he made up his mind to learn English because he didn't want to give Hangzhou taxi drivers a bad name.
He taught himself, watching many English-language movies and listening to songs to imitate the accent. He practiced on tourists strolling around and even bought an English dictionary that he carried around with him. He even took it with him to the toilet at home.
Determined
He has some hilarious stories to tell about learning.
He once wanted to explain customers that he needed to fill up the car but didn't know how to say, so he said: "My car is hungry. It needs to drink some oil." Customers laughed and helped him learn to express himself.
"I have to be brave to make mistakes while I am learning," Zhou says.
Zhou once quit his job as a taxi driver and tried his hand at other interests, but he got back behind the wheel again in 2003. His business card describes him as "guide, driver, translator and friend."
Good work has made Zhou famous among expatriates. Zhou also gains trust from his customers; sometimes he drives old customers at no charge; he also introduces customers to other drivers, saying, "Where there is a loss, there is also a gain."
In 2007, a French photographer couple wanted to charter his cab for one month, Zhou's standard charge was 800 yuan (US$117) per day back then. They asked for half-price because they were short of money and showed him a book, "China in the Mirror" that they shot in China.
If he took the business, he could earn 12,000 that month. But he was so impressed with the photos that showed China's connections between modern and ancient times that he contacted the Hangzhou City Travel Committee, which arranged a free trip for the photographers.
"Every foreign traveler is a window telling others about Hangzhou, and these people came to the city to promote it, so how can I take their money?" says Zhou.
Zhou's motto: enjoy life, enjoy work. "When I'm happy, they are happy."
"Almost all my clients promote me when they are back to their countries," says Zhou. " If I go to America, I would have a friend welcoming me in every big city."
Zhou has reasons to boast - every one of his customers was smiling throughout the whole trip to the former mansion of Hu Xueyuan, a businessman who started famous Hu Qing Yu Tang TCM pharmacy, according to staff at the residence.
Intrigue
He doesn't just tell history or explain customs, he first intrigues the travelers. "They experience the custom, then they learn the history," said a member of the residence staff.
When describing an antique bed, Zhou first asks visitors what it's for. They say it's for sleeping; he corrects them, "It's for smoking opium." Describing a luxury sedan chair, he calls it ancient China's BMW.
Once a tourist asked him how to say "I love you" in Chinese ("wo ai ni"). Zhou pointed to a wall, then to his eye, then to his knee and told the visitor to say them together. "Wall eye knee" sounds similar.
As a successful "three in one" cab driver for years, Zhou now plans a bilingual taxi driver league with branches in Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province and Hangzhou, four must-see cities. Now he is trying to recruit more drivers like him and give "five-star guide, translation and drive tours."
"Money is not made by hands, but by brains," says Zhou. "Anyone who works hard and perseveres can do what I do."
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