介绍:
Jerry Zhou is not just your regular driver in Hangzhou. He's THE driver to go to when you don't speak the local language. In fact, he has become known as the unofficial designated taxi driver for foreigners in Hangzhou. His popularity with visitors stems from the fact that, he is arguably the most fluent English speaking taxi driver in the whole of Hangzhou.
Nillah Nyakoa, caught up with him, to bring us this report.
Reporter
When it comes to speaking the 'Queens English,' Jerry Zhou has earned his place as the king of English speaking taxi drivers in China's southern city of Hangzhou. Interestingly his language skills are self taught.
So I decided that since I'm here, I wanted to meet this famous cabbie.
Nillah: Hi, nice to meet you, so you're not working today?
Jerry: No. It's almost one week now.
Nillah Wow! Almost a whole week!!
But first things first, before he agrees to speak to me on record, he wants me to try out local cuisine at his favourite restaurant.
"We're going to a place with local family food. I never recommend customers or friends to go to popular restaurants ".
Apart from being the most sought-after English speaking taxi driver, did I mention that Jerry is also officially regarded as the face of Hangzhou? The guy is so popular, he was crowned 2015 Hangzhou tourism ambassador by the local government. He has also received accolades from TV stations for just being passionate about his city.
" I'm very lucky to be the tourism ambassador because in my dream I want the whole world to know about Hangzhou. But many people when they talk about the city they always say, 'its in the south side of Shanghai about 45 minutes by train'. So I cant understand how Hangzhou, such a beautiful city, can come to be the countryside of Shanghai. So in my dream I thought, if I can just promote Hangzhou to the world, that would be so exciting. "
And last year that dream came true. His first assignment took him to 7 other countries around the world to preach the beauty that is Hangzhou.
But just how did his ambition begin?
"That happened in the summer of 1997 with a guy who had a lot of luggage and wanted to go to the airport but at that time my English wasn't very good. When he told me he wanted to go to the airport I didn't know what the airport was. so finally he positioned his arms like a plane and made me understand the airport"
And that is when it occurred to Jerry, that acquiring a skill like speaking English would actually give him an advantage over his colleagues. So he came up with a plan. A plan that would involve studying English on his own. But first, he needed someone to teach him the vocabulary and get him some practice.
To pay for English lessons, or ..... to only and exclusively, cater to random foreign customers, but learn some English for free? That was the hardest part in Jerry's decision making process - how to acquire that skill? Either way, he would still need to make some financial sacrifices. So he went with the latter. His gut feeling was right and his decision paid off.
"Yeah so, I gave up a lot of business on the street side just because I wanted to find and pick up a foreigner, just to improve my English."
It's that experience, that has since helped Jerry establish a strong customer base today, but above all allow him to study English on the job, for free, one vocabulary, one customer at a time.
But there is one thing that Jerry is looking forward to: Hangzhou, post G20 summit.
You see, like many other individual businesses in Hangzhou at the moment, Jerry has suspended his services due to the lack of his regular customers; the foreigners.
It's obvious that many Hangzhou expats have travelled as the city prepares to host the leaders of the 20 most powerful nations in the world. Security is tight, many businesses are closed, simply rendering Hangzhou a ghost town, with loads of police presence. So he's taking a break for now. But he is not worried about losing money at this time, in fact he is optimistic, very optimistic that business will be booming once the summit comes to a close.
"I can imagine how after the G20 Hangzhou will get more and more popular. So in the near future I think more and more foreigners will come here because (for example) now we have direct flights from the US."
So, as a self proclaimed ambassador of Hangzhou this year, Jerry is happy to advise the government on how to increase Hangzhou's competitiveness. And as he mentioned before, he hates how Hangzhou is mostly referred to as a city south of Shanghai. He would therefore like the local authorities to help his city find it's own true identity on the world stage. Here is his candid suggestion.
"The next step our government needs to think of is the service area. If we can make everything international, that would mean, that we are prepared."
And Jerry himself is showing the way, thanks to his personal web page, www.hangzhoutaxi.com
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