"Helpful" sign in China warning against illegal taxis.
Travelers' Complaints:
[Woman]: Damn, I got counterfeit money in change again when I took a car along the roadside. What a pain!
[Man]: Shit, I took an illegal taxi today and was ripped off again. They're so heartless!
[Old man]: It's awful, I took an unlicensed cab today and was cheated out of 500 yuan. Fuck!
[Policeman]: Idiots. Why don't you take a car from a regular station? Then your safety will be guaranteed!
Shangnan Police Station Hotline: 27291110
I think that this crudeness is partly because of the revolution. During that time, you needed to be a peasant to have street cred. I guess it is kind of like when politicians in the US talk with a Southern drawl or like a hick in order to relate with the masses. The thing with China, though, is that since then the "peasants" have indeed moved up and grown more wealthy, and many of the wealthy cultured people went to Taiwan or abroad. It does seem to me that the result is a more crude language in China. My family speaks in a much more crude and blunt way than how most American adults speak. I think it is like how engineers tend to speak, like cut the crap, you are all idiots.
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