Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Wind in her hair


I rushed straight from the airport to my friend's house to pick up my viola, and then straight to a rehearsal which I had found out about only at midnight the night before. It was lucky that a motorcyle taxi happened by, and thus that was my mode of transport to the BTS - our local LRT system.

This was the first time I've been on a motorcycle taxi and the driver was a lady. The long hair out of the sides of the helmet was a somewhat different sight and seeing as a pillion rider has to generally demonstrate knee avoidance ability in order not to ram into passing vehicles with somewhat more durability than one's tendons and cartiledges, it felt a little weird in this case. The lady honked a couple of crazy drivers, and I wondered if people treated her differently because she was a, well, she. Some other motorcyle driver tried to cut across and I wondered whether that was sexistly based as well. Throughout the trip I wondered hoe many people really defined a motorcyle driver by gender.

And when the ride ended, I realized that was exactly what I had been doing.

When my wallet opened up, her fee had a tip.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Interesting... Now I know what I can do for a living if I ever get retrenched. Introducing... SHORTIE, the latest motorcycle taxi in Penang.

And the only female. :P

Care to try?