Feature: Japanese taxis: The good, the bad and the ugly

Taxis can often be a lifeline, particularly for a tourist with no sense of direction who has become hopelessly lost in a bustling megapolis like Tokyo.

Or if a driver is particularly knowledgeable about the city's labyrinth-esque backstreets and can get his fare to that all important meeting in the nick of time, or, in those most desperate times, when a poor soul has become utterly inebriated, the taxi can be pivotal in ensuring its valuable yet intoxicated cargo is safely and, quite literally, delivered to its doorstop.

The inhabitants of Tokyo as well as its millions of annual visitors all use the thousands of taxis for a myriad of purposes: from standard A to B drop-offs, to moving vehicles where furniture gets rammed into the back and the trunk, and even as emergency vehicles when calling an ambulance to the nearest trauma center.

But one fact holds true for most of the taxis here, commissioned by more than 300 different companies - some more legit than others - they are among some of the best in the world in terms of safety, efficiency, professionalism, cleanliness and integrity, to the extent that some pundits believe that's why it's been so hard for private companies like Uber to fully break into the market here.

As with all taxis the world over that often serve as the first impression of a new country to travelers and foreigners, there are, along with superlative examples of wonderful taxi service, on the odd occasion, bad, and, sometimes for the most unfortunate passenger, truly ugly experiences in the back of a cab in Tokyo that will remain seared indelibly into the minds of the passenger for a lifetime, often to be recalled, recounted and the nightmare relives whenever the topic of taxis crops up in future conversations.

In the city of London, for example, all black cabs' drivers have undergone rigorous tests to ensure they pass an exceedingly tough navigational test known colloquially as "The Knowledge" that, when passed, means the driver is not only a qualified and licensed black cab driver, but also has the knowledge to get his or her passenger(s) anywhere in the city by way of landmark or road name, by the most direct route, without the need for maps or car navigation systems.

Whereas, taxis here in Tokyo, on the other hand, in this respect, can be something of a lottery.

A winning taxi driver will be a Tokyo resident and will know his way around, including all the cheeky short-cuts, like the back of his hand.

Conversely, if someone's choice of cabbie is less fortunate, the driver will be new to the area, claiming he knows where he's going, before admitting he's lost, much to the chagrin of the passenger, and requiring a physical address to be entered into his sat-nav system, which he may or may not have mastered the use of, to guide him to his destination as the meter runs and runs.

And the constant apologies of "Gomenasai" and "sumimasen, I'm new to the area," and especially, "I don't know how to use my sat- nav" fall on increasingly deaf and angry ears as the fare increases and the destination remains a mystery.

"With the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games only five years away, we want to make sure that the taxi companies and drivers we recommend our guests to use can either speak basic English, have a translation system in the car -- which proved quite handy during the 2002 FIFA World Cup jointly hosted here -- or ask for an address upfront, not halfway through the journey to squeeze the meter, to put in their navigation systems and ensure the passengers arrive via the most direct and fastest route," Ryota Morita, head of concierge services at an iconic high-end hotel in central Tokyo, told Xinhua.

"When the World Cup was held here, we did in fact get a host of complaints from our guests about the taxis here, ranging from drivers seemingly driving to random destinations having assumed they'd 'heard' the destination correctly and then running up the meter to get to the actual intended destination, to drivers refusing to pick up foreigners -- which I've heard is something of a common trait here, as they assume non-Japanese can't speak the language and the drivers can't be bothered with the hassle, or worry they (the passengers) might try and bargain or negotiate on fares," Morita explained.

There were also drivers who were overly friendly as they were seemingly more concerned with practicing their English than actually doing their job, he added.

But the biggest bugbear among foreigners both living in and visiting Japan is a seemingly innocuous question often asked by drivers as a matter of what they would describe as courtesy but often being interpreted as utterly extraneous, a 27-year-old assistant language teacher, James Gardner, from the U.S., said.

"I try not to use taxis as they're a little expensive compared to trains, which is always my first option as they're so fast and reliable, and buses which are just cheap, but every so often if I' m late, I'll jump in a cab, or if I'm in a group we'll all hop in a split of the fare," Gardner, who teaches English alongside Japanese teachers in junior high schools just outside Tokyo, told Xinhua.

"But another reason I tend to avoid them is because the driver always -- and I mean like 90 percent of the time -- kicks off the conversation once I've given my destination by asking: 'Which route would you like me to take?'

"In my opinion this is the dumbest question ever! What's my response going to be? 'Oh, please take me by the longest, most scenic route possible, even though it's past midnight and it's raining, because I'd simply like to give you as much money as possible, and perhaps we could even stop for coffee and ice cream on the way and become best friends!'" Gardner said, failing to contain his indignation at this question.

"It makes me so mad. The drivers must know that the route I want to take is the quickest, most direct one and if they are not 100 percent sure, they can use their navigation systems to follow, I shouldn't even be asked -- it's his job to get me where I'm going ASAP."

"I wouldn't ask one of my students to teach me the difference between the simple past and the past progressive tense in my English class because that's my job, it's what I get paid to do. It's like they have no common sense," the irate American continued.

Other foreigners here while lauding some of the experiences they'd had in taxis during their trips to Tokyo also had some encounters they found less than pleasurable.

Newly weds Viggo and Tuva Axelsson, both in their early thirties, decided to stop off in Tokyo, Kyoto and Nara, as part of their romantic Pacific tour, which would also comprise Guam, Hawaii, and culminate on the Indonesian island of Bali. They told Xinhua during an informal parley in a hotel in midtown Tokyo where they were staying that while taxis in Tokyo were seemingly omnipotent, the drivers themselves were less godly.

"We often got the impression that it was in some way troublesome for the drivers to have to take us somewhere, even though our hotel's concierge took care of the outgoing journeys' conversation with the drivers, and to get back to our hotel in the evening. We'd just have to say the name of the hotel. It's not exactly the hardest job in the world," Viggo said.

"Not only was one driver in particular openly hostile, he seemed to think he was at home in his living room and not at work driving a taxi. The car smelt of stale body odor, as if he'd slept in the car for a couple of nights without washing, and the smell of cigarette smoke was still lingering from his last break, where he clearly didn't leave the car, as we learnt afterwards they're supposed to, but that wasn't the biggest incident," said Viggo, with a face that hinted at both amusement and sheer disgust.

"In the twenty-or-so minutes we were in this taxi, the flatulent driver, who also thought it was okay to listen to the local baseball game on the radio, which was (expletive) annoying, passed gas not once, but twice, forcing us to wind the windows down to avoid the noxious, pungent stench," Tuva recalled, her face contorted as if the phantom smell briefly came back to haunt her nasal passage once again.

"At first I thought he'd started eating some strange kind of rotten Japanese eggs, as I know some of the food is fermented here and then we both realized he'd passed gas," said Viggo.

She added that by coughing, making disparaging remarks in Swedish and lowering the windows, they'd made their disgust clearly known.

"But literally five or 10 minutes later, just as the original fumes were beginning to dissipate, he let rip again, turning the air inside the cab into a toxic medley of rotten eggs, sulfur and moldy cabbage, with a cloying beef-like undertone," Viggo explained in both intricate and perhaps slightly overly-graphic detail.

The couple said they told the driver to pull over immediately, and he did and proceeded to begrudgingly charge them (the full fare), almost threw their change and receipt at them on their way out, and sped off at break-neck speed, presumably to find the nearest public toilet, leaving the two Swedes on the side of a nondescript road, wondering whether they should hail another cab, or risk the subway.

"We took the subway," said Tuva. "It was wonderful. On time, clean and easy to use, I wish we'd used it more during our trip." "I did however see a fully-grown man dressed in a high school girls' sailor-suit uniform. Is that also normal in Japan?" Tuva quizzed as Viggo chuckled.

"Yeah, that was pretty weird," he said. Endi