Back in the 1980s, I had an evening class student, David, who is Irish and white, who was a black cab driver. Whenever I referred to him — “my black cab driver student David” — people would say, “It’s very unusual for a black man to be learning Chinese.” (That was back in the 1980s when hardly any black person came to learn Chinese on my evening programme. I’ve had something like five black students out of the 2000 or so students over my 26 years of teaching Chinese at the university.)
Yesterday, another David student told me he once had an American banking colleague, freshly arrived in London, asking about tipping London taxi drivers. (Tipping is a big thing with Americans.) David told her, “We don’t usually tip black cab drivers. Taxi rides are very expensive in London anyway.” A bit later, the American lady told David, “Since you told me about not tipping black cab drivers, I’ve been looking closely at the drivers when I get in a cab, to see if they’re black.”
(London, 1980s)
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