I know, I know. We tell our kids not to say "hate" so perhaps "despise" is a better term, but either way you get my point.

I didn't like the taxi situation when I lived in Beijing and I don't like them now. Most people I know in Beijing don't like the taxis either, but most people just make due. My hatred of having to deal with taxis was part of the reason why I got my Chinese drivers license and drove ourselves wherever we wanted to go.

To keep this from becoming and entire post detailing all the reasons why Beijing taxis are horrible, I'll just mention a few (these are generalizations, and of course there are exceptional cases, but in general, I think these are very accurate):

they are more interested in sleeping or playing cards with their friends than take you anywhere.
insistence on negotiating prices instead of turning on the meter and charging the legal price.
refusing to take you if your destination is too close, or too far.
arguing with you if you don't have small enough change.
refusing to take all your baggage if you have too much.
dirty, smelly and no seat belts.

There are other reasons, but those are just a few.

I had many very poor taxi experiences during the three years we lived in Beijing of several that resulted in us arguing and often the taxi would refuse to go any further until I paid more.

Jess, on the other hand, has had pretty good luck with taxis, and she put up with my whining and complaining with an eye roll. So, I took sadistic pleasure we had, not one, not two, but three bad taxi experiences on Saturday morning.

We went shopping at a few of our favorite stores on Saturday morning. We knew where we were going, it was a famous market, and it was a reasonably long way from our hotel so we had no problem getting a taxi to take us down there for the actual taxi meter price.

However, when we finished and were trying to get back to our hotel, the first several taxis refused take us and wanted 3x the actual price. Since it was just Jess and me (and no ores kids straggling along) we reused and kept on walking. We would find a proper taxi.

So we were quite happy when after a few minutes of standing on the corner, we managed to hail a cab that would take us to our hotel. But a few hundred meters down the road he stopped and negotiated. We got a price that was quite okay (50 RMB) and he gave us 50 RMB and he wanted a 100 RMB in return. That has never happened to me before, but I assumed he had too much change so he was consolidating. And we are nice so we obliged. But after he took my 100 RMB bull (the biggest bill in China) he didn't like it. He wanted a new one. My bill had a small tear in it so he gave it back to me (not unusual) and I gave him a different one. He didn't like that one either.

The taxi driver said he wanted a "new" one, something that was minted after 2005. I know enough Chinese to know what he want he was saying but I couldn't understand why. I've never had some want a specific year.

He and I were discussing back and forth in the taxi, while we're pulled off on the side of the road. I said we didn't have any new ones, but he wanted to check them all and when they weren't good enough, he gave them back to me. After a few rounds of this we got frustrated, gave him back his 50RMB and got out of the taxi, not happy.

We got dumped on the side of a busy road with our bags and tried flag another taxi. After a few minutes, we stopped one, we chatted and he agreed to take us. So we hopped in and sped off away from downtown and northeast towards the Lido district where our hotel was located.

After a few minutes, the taxi driver gets a phone call, and takes it while he was driving (not uncommon). But, what was unusual was that soon after, he stopped the taxi on the side of the road and askedus to get out. He explained the reason was something about the phone call but I didn't understand what he was saying. So again, Jess and I found ourselves dumped back out onto the roadside, still trying to get ourselves and our purchases back to our hotel.

By this time, Jess is starting to exhibit the same frustration with Beijing taxis as I have had for a long time.

Shortly thereafter we managed to flag yet another taxi and get back to our hotel with little other drama.

We met a few friends for dinner on Saturday night and I explained the weird "taxi driver only wants new bills" phenomenon and they also hadn't experienced it and thought it was unusual. I didn't fully understand what was happening until this morning when I tried to buy coffee the store wouldn't take my bills because they were fake 100 RMB bills. Strange. Maybe the bill reader just didn't like my bills. I paid with a credit card, took my coffee and moved on.

Like most people who live in China, Jess and I are careful about who we take 100 RMB bills from, and normally only get them from the ATM. Could the ATM have given us a few fake bills? It's happened to me twice before but it's pretty rare. We hadn't gotten money from anywhere else.

Except...

That taxi driver touched several of my bills. He kept looking at the dates and then giving them back to me. And guess what, now I have a bunch of counterfeit bills. He must have done some sort of fast taxi driver slight of hand when he handed them back to me.

I'm mad at him, but I'm more frustrated with myself. For some reason, I remember enough about living in China to be comfortable, but I've forgotten just enough to always be on my guard for getting ripped off.

Oh well, lesson learned I suppose.