Taximan's Story

This is a short story in a book of short stories, Little Ironies by Catherine Lim. Go read it when you have time.



Anyway, I was reading this story when I asked myself these questions:

1. What is the irony in the story?


2. What are the themes raised in the story?


3. How realistic is this story?


4. What do you think of the Taximan? Do you feel any sympathy for him?


5. Do you agree with his lamenting?


6. What about the other characters in the story? Do you feel any sympathy for them?

1) What is the irony in the story?

• The taximan likes to scout for customers like pretty girls who have rich european girlfriends to provide for them, as these customers pay big.


• After driving these customers around for a while, he learns the habits of these people and regularly pick them up to make more money, seeing as they do not care whether he drives around in circles, give large tips and do not really care about change they receive.


• The taximan talks about how his daughter starts to sell herself out to foreigners, bringing up the irony of the story. The taximan likes to ferry 'Sarong Party Girls', young teenagers who like to have foreign boy friends, but when he finds out that his own daughter is one of those types of people, he is enraged and beats his daughter so badly, she can't go to school for 3 days.