We've written before about how frustrating catching a taxi in Chengdu has become in the last few years. And although 800 cabs were allegedly added to Chengdu's streets last month, it doesn't seem to be getting any easier.

But now help is on the way, in the form of a "chubby figure" who chases down cabs for passengers, collecting 2 RMB each time.

From Sichuan News:


For the service he makes from 2 to 5 RMB. The industrious 20-year-old, Xiao Long, started grabbing cabs for passengers about a month ago, during which time he's earned a few hundred yuan.

Who is this plump traffic angel? Xiao Long came from Anyue to Chengdu with his parents, who repair electric tricycles. To pick up some extra money for his family, Xiao Long had been collecting plastic bottles, but inspired by children at Yanshikou who were grabbing cabs, he decided to try cab grabbing himself just a few blocks down at Hongxing Lu.

The first day on the job he earned 20 yuan and since then has spent three or four hours a day chasing cabs for others. "Want me to help you hail a cab? Just 2 kuai!" he calls out to passengers stranded by the side of the road, no empty taxi in sight. What started out as an experiment has become a job. "I could go to a restaurant and order a plate of fish-flavored eggplant. Sweet!" he said.

But the job is not without its risks. Xiao Long runs, grabbing onto the trunks of cabs and trotting behind them to ensure his clients will get a seat. Still, sometimes others will knock him down in order to grab the cab out from under his grasp. Sometimes the cabs themselves inadvertently knock him to the ground. And passing bus drivers verbally abuse him for running in their way. Other times he'll run and run to catch a cab, only to have the driver say, "Sorry, my shift just ended."

If he is unable to successfully get a cab within 30 minutes, he'll return the client's money.

After a month selling his services, Xiao Long has started to develop a following. The elderly like him since they're usually less able than others to aggressively hail cabs. And once a man on his way to the airport gave him RMB10 for helping catch a cab. More recently, a 16-year-old boy from Mei Shan named Xing Lin has been taken under Xiao Long's wing to learn the trade.

City residents call hailing a taxi "guerilla warfare" (游击) and all have their own strategies for catching one or avoiding them altogether, including avoiding certain areas, timing strategies, and taking alternative modes of transportation.

In a separate article, a reporter joined a cabbie during rush hour and found that from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., he picked up a total of 34 passengers, clocked in 300 kilometers, and took in about RMB500. The driver said these numbers were lower than usual and that the reporter sitting in the front seat might have discourage people from taking his cab that day.

The Sino-Japanese Taxi Company (中日出租汽车公司), who operates over 530 of the city's cabs, reported that their drivers take on average 50 passengers per day, which is higher than the national average of 30 to 40, according to a statement from the Southwest Jiaotong University school of urban and transportation planning.

Metro Line 1 is expected to open one year from now--National Day 2010, Sichuan News announced today.

The trains themselves were delivered in August and are currently undergoing testing.

Construction on Line 2 is also well underway.

The construction has left many of the city's roads just barely accessible to vehicles. Lanes have been closed and left turns banned at many intersections.

Renmin Nan Lu in particular, one of the city's main thoroughfares, has been hardly hospitable to commuters--especially those on foot or bike--the last couple of months.

Construction was ongoing during the hoiday period with thousands of workers employed to maintain the frantic pace of the roadwork while keeping the roads open to traffic--which often requires laying down asphalt only to tear it up again several days later.

Much-needed pavement was laid down on Renmin Nan Lu between the Jinjiang River and the Second Ring Road. For weeks it has been a stretch of potholes, cracks, bumps, sudden drops, and sections lacking any paving whatsoever.

Project foreman Ju Xie said that construction on Renmin Nan Lu should be mostly completed by the end of the month with some minor work still to be done after that--"but it won't take too long." The blue construction barriers will be taken down mid-month, he said.

And in other news, if you thought the streets seemed emptier than usual during the holiday, you weren't just imagining things: Yesterday alone, an alleged 68,000 people departed from the city via the bus stations, reported Sina. That figure doesn't include those who went on holiday via other means of transportation, including by planes and personal vehicles.

The most popular destinations were Xichang, Dazhou, Panzhihua, Yibin, and Chongqing.

Over 20 people were buried under a bungalow that collapsed at the Shishi Middle School (石室中学) in Chengdu's Chenghua district in the early morning hours Thursday. Rescue workers were able to release all of the buried, 10 of whom sustained minor injuries. The collapse was thought to be in part due to the heavy rainstorm that preceded it.
China Daily (Image: Xinhua)

High-school students at a boarding school in southeastern Sichuan's Gulin County, Luzhou, rioted after power to their dormitories was repeatedly cut during the peak of a heat wave last week. After police were summoned to contain the students, a long list of bitter complaints regarding the school leader's corrupt behaviors, including forcing students to buy overpriced food from the school cafeteria, emerged. The principal has since been removed from his post, and other schools in the area are under investigation.
China Daily

Eight passengers were killed and five injured when a long-distance passenger bus fell off a 110-meter-high cliff near Xichang, Liangshan Prefecture, Thursday evening. An investigation into the cause of the accident is underway.
Chengdu QQ

A woven-bag factory in Guanghan caught fire early Monday morning, sending 10-meter-high flames into the sky. Firefighters succeeded in putting out the blaze after four hours.
Sichuan News

A husband and wife were killed by an explosion on Wednesday in the illegal firecracker factory where they worked in Yanting County, Mianyang.
Sichuan News

A university student visiting E'mei Shan fell 60 meters off a steep cliff on Monday. The victim, who had been hiking alone, lay in a coma for two days until he came to and used the remaining amount of battery on his mobile phone to call his family in Nanchong. A rescue team was able to reach him a day later and send him to the hospital, where he is being treated for a number of minor injuries.
Sichuan Online

Two Sichuan residents were convicted of manufacturing the illegal substance Ketamine and executed as part of a nationwide crackdown on drug production.
Xinhua

Over 400 flights departing from the Shuangliu International Airport were delayed due to Thursday night's violent thunderstorm.
Sina

Nanchong residents try to cool off in the river. Image: Sichuan Online

While Chengdu enjoyed mild temperatures starting late last week, schools in Guang'an, Ziyang, Nanchong, and Dazhou were forced to close due to the 40-degree heat, giving 600,000 students an impromptu holiday.
West China City Daily

Urban development

Chengdu's transportation planning is undergoing a face lift, announced the city government during a Thursday press conference. Plans include eight footbridges on the First and Second Ring Roads to be completed by year's end; revised bus routes that will reduce the number of left turns; and, by month's end, an additional 800 taxis.
Sina

Travel time between Chengdu and Chongqing will be cut to two hours by the end of the month, when new Hexiehao high-speed trains will start running.
Chengdu QQ BBS

Culture

Last Wednesday's auspicious date of September 9, 2009 prompted tens of thousands of Chinese couples to rush to marriage offices. The "triple 9" is vaguely reminiscent of the phrase "I'll love you for a long, long time" in pronunciation (二零零九九九/èr-líng-líng-jiǔ-jiǔ-jiǔ and 爱您您久久久/ài-nín-nín-jiǔ-jiǔ-jiǔ). A clerk at the marriage office in Chengdu reported that within one hour of the 7 a.m. opening time, more couples had queued than during the entire day on the last auspicious date—August 8, 2008.
China Daily

Film critics are starting to turn their attention to the highly anticipated film "Chengdu, I Love You," which closed out last week's Venice Film Festival. This one calls it a "bloody carcass" that "hobbles onscreen minus one leg in unmarketable condition" and "is capsized by a laughably inept opening seg by mainland rock idol Cui Jian." Ouch.

A list of historic buildings to be preserved in Chengdu has been compiled. Among these are 38 Citang Jie, which was once a Xinhua Daily office and housed Zhou Enlai during wartime, and a three-story, Western-style brick building on Fangchi Jie built in the early days of the Republic and featuring stained-glass windows from abroad.
Sichuan News

Two Song Dynasty tombs were discovered in Datian Village, Xiangyan Town, Pingwu County (平武县响岩镇大田村) following a landslide caused by heavy rains. Artifacts dating back to the Three Kingdoms, Tang, and Song Dynasties were unearthed at the site.
People.com

Odd news
A vehicle swerved out of the driver's control and rolled into a ditch Thursday morning. But it wasn't just any ditch—it was a National Hybrid Rice Technology Research Center testing field in Xipu, Pixian, and the accident destroyed the crops of a new, ultra-yield hybrid rice. The crops, which were nearly ready for harvest, belonged to renowned hybrid-rice master Ruan Longping, who, along with the rest of the research staff, was reportedly very upset about the ordeal.
Chengdu QSS

And recipient of the Is This Really Newsworthy? award goes to the reporter who decided the fact that a bridal shop hired two foreign models to pose in its windows merits photos and a clip in the Tianfu Morning News.
Sichuan News

With research by Marvin Tan

Construction on a rail line linking Chengdu with Lhasa in Tibet will commence this month, according to a China Daily report.

The new train route will make it possible to travel by rail between Chengdu and Lhasa in under nine hours. The trip will cover 1,629 kilometers at a designed speed of 200 kilometers per hour.

At present, the only overland options between Chengdu are a three-day road trip on the No 318 national highway or a 45-hour rail trip that passes through Shaanxi and Qinghai provinces.

No projected completion date has been provided for the rail line's construction, which will face challenges including cold weather, low oxygen levels, land and rock slides and frozen earth.

Sichuan cities that will be stops on the proposed line include Pujiang (浦江), Ya'an (雅安), Kangding (康定) and Litang (理塘).

Potala Palace image: gosichuan.com

Railway officials have detained a man for stabbing two people to death and injuring another on the 2640 train from Kunming to Chengdu after a dispute over the man's alleged "loud humming", according to a Xinhua report.

The arrested man, who police said is surnamed Yan, allegedly got into an argument around 10:35 am on Saturday with three other male passengers, over Yan's loud humming while listening to his portable CD player.

The other passengers, surnamed Luo, Ren and Wu, dragged Yan down to the floor of their train car and began to beat him. Yan then pulled out a folding knife and retaliated, stabbing all three of his attackers.

Luo died onboard the train and Ren died afterward in a hospital. Wu is hospitalized in stable condition.

Employees aboard the train said they heard passengers scream that someone had been killed. By the time they had made it to the scene of the fight, it was allegedly already over.

Police are still investigating the case and have not said if Yan will be charged with any crimes.

Alongside hotpot, tea houses, and mahjong players, one of Chengdu's key features is the swarms of people appearing at every bus stop during rush hour. Waiting passengers flood out onto the streets, disrupting the flow of traffic. Amidst the pushing and shoving to get on the bus, personal belongings are stolen, arguments break out, and general mayhem ensues.

However, one notable exception is the stop for bus No. 20 on Hongxing Lu, at the mouth of the Chunxi Lu pedestrian street. For reasons that seem mysterious to the average passerby, passengers waiting for the No. 20 bus have neatly and quietly queued in a long, snaking line for the bus since late 2003.

The initiative was the brainchild of bus No. 20 dispatcher Lan Xuedong (蓝学东), a now-legendary figure in Chengdu known as the "sister of public-transportation" (公交妹妹).

Sohu reported on the phenomenon in 2007 (our translation):



But with the support of the Chengdu Blue Star Public Transport Group (成都市公交集团东星公司), which installed signs instructing passengers to line up at all stops, and despite the physical and emotional trauma Lan Xuedong and her coworkers endured (to comfort each other, they even come up with a "most-wronged award"), the initiative proved successful: the "Bus No. 20 phenomenon" ("20路现象") is now reportedly known countrywide as a symbol of orderliness and civilization.

And now, the Tianfu Square West bus stop is trying to implement its own bus No. 20 phenomenon. This time, the queue is for bus No. 118. From 7:30 to 9:30 (peak traffic times) every morning, there will be 10 "queuing assistants" to prod passengers into line.

Most passengers at the station were willing to line up for the bus, they said, and as long as other people also follow suit, they won't jump the queue.

If the trial succeeds in Tianfu Square West station, it would appear the time is ripe for promoting "civilized" queuing behavior in Chengdu, an idea long discussed by Chengdu media and civilians.

In 2008, the Tianfu Morning Post (天府早报), Chengdu Mobile Transport TV, and Tencent (the makers of popular online-chat software QQ) called for a "Everybody Discuss Civilized Public Transport" (文明公交大家谈) forum, asking the public to give their opinions on what aspects of public-transportation behavior needs to change.

The Morning Post also proposed a "promote queuing day" on the 11th of every month.

"To see the passengers lining up voluntarily everywhere in Chengdu is a dream that my coworkers and I have," said Lan Xuedong.

With research by Miya Yang