The Trishaw Man

One of the many distinctive features of transportation services in Jinhua City lies in the trishaw services. Well of course this comes after the daily suicide-mode taxi drivers who fetches me to and from workplace. There are plenty of trishaws peddlers who will fetch you to not-so-far areas for a small fee. The interesting part is, none of them will ever cross the bridge - meaning to say, trishaws from North will not service to South of Jinhua City and vice versa.

Anyway, I was strolling around with Tan TS and we decided to hunt for a trishaw peddler to shoot. It is rather uncommon for local Chinese men to sport moustache and also beard. I dont know why this is so, but lets just say that I was looking for a male trishaw peddler with a character - and this must come with some form of facial hair!

So there we were, 2 funky dudes with DSLRs walking from streets to streets, and eyeing on trishaw peddlers. Finally we came across one, and decided to ask him to fetch us to a nearby park. The journey took about 10 minutes, with some sloped roads which sure made him peddled even harder. And mind you, for such a journey, all he was asking for was just RMB5 (for comparison sake, a can of coke cost RMB3).

While taking the ride, we asked the man for a 10 minute photoshoot, and he declined. Understanding that time means money, and more so for this trishaw peddler I decided to offer him some monetary compensation for his time. He obliged at RMB20. When we reached the park, Tan paid him RMB30 instead and he was very very happy. And nothing beats a happy man from posing for our cameras! :)

So here they are some of the photos of this great man, who works hard everyday... regardless of rain or shine, hot or cold, winter or summer. He's out there ferrying people from places to places.

ps. I saw him the next morning while I was walking to a taxi stand. He recognized me and waved at me and gave me a friendly smile. It made my day knowing that I once made him a happy man. :)