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Private bus driver loved and hated for making detours, raising prices
By Wang Yong |
February 11, 2009, Wednesday
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Print Edition
MY unusual journey last month between two small cities, linked by a space speckled with villages, tells something unusual about rural demand, a buzz phrase in China's political economy today.
Caught in a global financial crisis that has weakened Western demand for Chinese goods, China is pinning hopes on its rural market to rekindle consumption.
My little journey tells how rural demand has been constrained not by villagers' shallow pockets, but by lack of the appropriate goods and services that villagers want.
My wife and I boarded a half-new bus from Yangzhou, my hometown, to Yancheng, her hometown on January 28. The trip in Jiangsu Province was supposed to take three hours or less if the bus driver stuck to the highway.
But he did not. The bus meandered through village after village, stopping now and then to pick up passengers to fill the bus beyond capacity, to make extra money. The journey took us nearly four hours.
The newly added passengers, mostly farmers, not only had no seats, but they had to pay exorbitant prices.
The original passengers each paid 53 yuan (US$7.57) for a one-way ticket, and yet newcomers had to pay 80 or 100 for half of the distance.
I protested to the driver: "I will sue you for randomly stopping and picking up passengers beyond what the bus can carry." The driver started a little, but soon retorted calmly: "Go ahead. I am a private bus operator. I am private, not state-owned."
My threat evaporated. Villagers did hate him for the extortionate prices, but loved him for going out of his way to pick them up.
The villagers had money, at least enough money for the expensive trip. What they did not have was a road and a few bus stops.
If a well-regulated state-owned bus ran through their villages and charged the standard prices, they would be much happier as farmers.
Caught in a global financial crisis that has weakened Western demand for Chinese goods, China is pinning hopes on its rural market to rekindle consumption.
My little journey tells how rural demand has been constrained not by villagers' shallow pockets, but by lack of the appropriate goods and services that villagers want.
My wife and I boarded a half-new bus from Yangzhou, my hometown, to Yancheng, her hometown on January 28. The trip in Jiangsu Province was supposed to take three hours or less if the bus driver stuck to the highway.
But he did not. The bus meandered through village after village, stopping now and then to pick up passengers to fill the bus beyond capacity, to make extra money. The journey took us nearly four hours.
The newly added passengers, mostly farmers, not only had no seats, but they had to pay exorbitant prices.
The original passengers each paid 53 yuan (US$7.57) for a one-way ticket, and yet newcomers had to pay 80 or 100 for half of the distance.
I protested to the driver: "I will sue you for randomly stopping and picking up passengers beyond what the bus can carry." The driver started a little, but soon retorted calmly: "Go ahead. I am a private bus operator. I am private, not state-owned."
My threat evaporated. Villagers did hate him for the extortionate prices, but loved him for going out of his way to pick them up.
The villagers had money, at least enough money for the expensive trip. What they did not have was a road and a few bus stops.
If a well-regulated state-owned bus ran through their villages and charged the standard prices, they would be much happier as farmers.
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