It was a cold and dark night when I stepped outside of the apartment building in which I spent majority of the evening at. Niell Wycik, it read on the side of the building. I started dragging my feet across the pavement. It felt sore and cramped inside the leather boots but good at the same time. The click clacking of the heels cleared the thoughts inside my head. As I ran over the occurrences of the night, a yellow cab pulled up in front of me. The cab driver motioned for me to hop inside. I obliged.
"Where are you headed?" He asked, bright and chipper as can be. He looked me up and down and assumed I lived around the block. Scantily clad in fishnet stockings and thigh high leather boots with Minnie Mouse ears atop my head, he could tell I had a good night of partying. Quickly closing the door shut behind me, I asked for a flat rate to Yonge and Finch. "How much do you want to pay?" I counter inquired, "How much is the lowest rate you can give me?" He said nothing so I stated "Thirty dollars." He pondered for a brief moment and said, "For you, thirty-five dollars!" and held out his right hand. Firmly taking his coarsely chaffed hand in mine, I said, "Deal." He then took my hand and kissed it. And with that, we ventured forth into the unknown journey that is the most memorable cab ride of my life.
As we departed the intersection of Gerrard and Jarvis, he inquired what nationality I was part of. I stated I was Korean. He said I don't sound like I'm Korean. He asked if I spoke Korean. To that I remarked, many Koreans are very proud of their nationality and keep their heritage strong. "I speak, read, and write Korean fluently. I came to Canada when I was 11. It's funny because a lot of Koreans you face in Toronto tend to neglect the heritage that is Canadian and refuse to speak English. They maintain their sole heritage as Korean and refuse to adapt this culture as part of their new heritage." He drove thoughtfully. I asked where he came from. He stated Bangladesh. Then asked what I do for a living. I started to explain the line of work I was involved in. "I work for an iPhone application company." He replied to that statement with this. "You mean an application company that develops applications compatible to iPhones. You don't actually develop apps for iPhones because they have their own developers that come up with default applications already installed on the iPhone, like iTunes. You probably develop apps that are compatible for the iPhone, like Pizza Pizza and their order and delivery service." I did not understand what he was saying until he repeated it the second time around. I laughed. He was an intellectual who was interested in more than just money. I could tell he wanted an engaging conversation. "Ironically enough, Apple applications are not the most popular applications on the app store. They often receive terrible reviews due to the fact that they are not designed and developed with various users in mind. People complain they do nothing but drain their battery lifespan over the usage history." He said he understood their pain. "You open many applications running and your phone dies within half an hour." I laughed again and said, "Maybe if you had thirty different applications running simultaneously, yeah." "Are you the owner of your company?" "No," I said, laughing, "I work for someone else." "Well, you seem very knowledgeable about your work. You are very smart. Are you sure you don't own that application company?" "No, I'm merely the editorial manager. I only get to decide what we put out on the application, I don't develop or design." He seemed satisfied with that response.
The conversation was starting to get a little more interesting. I decided to divert his attention. I asked him what he did in Bangladesh before he came to Canada. "I was a journalism major. I mostly did editorials for international affairs." This immediately sparked my interest. "I have a question for you then. What is your opinion on how news is portrayed through the media? If you've worked in media, you know enough about the politics and the bias that goes behind the scenes of every news story, right? I know a lot of broadcasting companies have their own political views and opinions. Does that always shine through or can you actually state what you think and know is happening?" He looked greatly amused. His eyes twinkled with further knowledge and wisdom I did not know of and I was curious to know more.
"What is your name?" "Hanna." "Well, Hanna, it is funny you should ask that. If you work for a media company, you are bound to make revenues through advertisements. These investors have their opinions and political parties they support. They get to decide what content is published and produced according to their wants and needs, so really, no media company is independent if they want to make revenues." Aha, I thought. Great insight that reaffirms my beliefs about the mass media biasing the content that is ingested every second by the world! "How do you make revenues on the application? How does the business stay afloat?" "We also run advertisements on the application. That in turn generates revenues for us." "See? Advertisements."
At this point I haggled him to drop me off at my apartment for $5 more on the agreed price. He accepted and continued to give me his two cents on the world of broadcasting media. "Say I wanted to publish or broadcast something: I met Hanna, a Korean who immigrated to Canada when she was 11 years old. In order for me to get this story out, I need 2 viable sources." "ONLY TWO?!" "Yes, two credible sources is all you need. For example, I will ask someone from the Korean embassy to confirm the information I recorded with the intention of broadcasting. I told you I would record this conversation and broadcast it, you agreed, and now I am confirming these facts you have told me are true. If they tell me that this story is false, I will then need two more sources that confirm that this story is false." I was really giddy with pleasure from having such an unexpectedly pleasant conversation with this spectacular taxi driver. "You, Hanna, supplied these facts to me, Mohamed, and I decide to make sure this information is true. Let's say one day you become a celebrity. You tell the media that you were poor and grew up having nothing when in actuality you grew up wealthy and lived comfortably all your life. I go to your family and they tell me the story you gave me is false. Now I've got a different story than the one I started with."
We had already arrived in front of my building and I was wishing I lived further away so this conversation could continue. I smiled at him and handed him three bills. He looked confused. "We agreed on $40. You gave me more." "Yes, the rest is your tip. Thank you for your insight and thank you for the ride." As we were saying our goodbyes, he took my hand, shook it and kissed it again. "Thank you. You have a good night and I will see you around." And thus concluded the amazing conversation I could never forget with two strangers in a foreign land.
