Taxi!
I should have realised there was something funky going on when I saw the taxi driver looking out of his window, his entire upper body out of the door, staring at the potential customers. Most taxi drivers just sit in their taxi waiting for the customers. With this guy, as soon as I had sat down in his taxi and asked him to take me home, he couldn't stop talking.
"You Chinese people? Korean people?" he asked.
"I'm Korean," I said.
"I Korea once," he said, using his left hand to emphasise the word 'once'.
"Oh, really?" I said. (My powers of interpretation grow daily. I cannot believe I understood that non-sentence).
"I ski, you know, ski?" he said, taking
both of his hands off the wheel to show the motions of skiing. My eyes nearly popped out in fright. We were on a busy road, charging towards a traffic light.
"I snowboard, you know snowboard?" he said again, taking
both of his hands off the wheel again to show the motions of the snowboard.
"Yes, I know skiing," I said, when I'd found my voice.
"Korean bad English," he said.
"I guess Koreans do speak bad English," I said.
"You speak very good English," he said.
"Thank you," I said.
"Korean hotel taxi... what do you call colourless taxi?" he asked, taking
his hands off the wheel to scratch his head.
Colourless. Now what does he mean by that? Better work it out before he starts gesticulating again.
"You mean the black taxis?" I asked.
"Yes, yes, black taxi. They good English. But yellow taxi
bad English," he said.
"I didn't know any taxi drivers could speak good English in Korea," I said, wondering how much longer I'd have to keep up the conversation.
"Yes, hotel black taxi good English. But no like Chinese people. No nice," he said. I was ashamed. I decided to be much nicer to him after that.
"Well, that's a shame. They should have been nice to you. I don't know if it helps, but Korean taxi drivers aren't generally that nice to Koreans, either," I said. I wondered if he understood what I was saying.
"No nice," he repeated.
He stopped at the foot of the little slope up towards my apartment building.
"Goodbye and good night," he said.
"Goodnight," I said.
Everything has a cause and an effect. A Hong Kong taxi driver gets mistreated by Korean taxi drivers and as a result some random Korean girl in Hong Kong has to suffer near-collisions when being driven by that Hong Kong taxi driver.
To all Korean taxi drivers, I beseech you, please treat your customers better.