Life of 10 drivers for web taxi-hailing services

Ma Xia poses with her car. [Photo/news.china.com.cn]

Forty-one-year-old Ma Xia came to Beijing in 1996. She had a variety of different jobs: working at a supermarket in a military base, driving a van for a film crew, and running her own small business. Last summer, she noticed that her peers all rushed to register to become Didi drivers and she followed suit. Her current car for Didi service is a Buick GL8 van.

Ma usually starts picking orders as early as 5-6 am each day. She puts on makeup before starting service. She said her time spent in a military campus influenced her to have high self-discipline, which in combination with nice communication skills, makes the work easy. Moreover, being a Didi driver makes her feel that she is starting a new business.

Ma carries her passengers' luggage. [Photo/news.china.com.cn]

Didi Private Car calls for higher service quality. Ma personally carries her passengers' luggage each time. She lives close to the airport and performs orders to it during the wee hours. In this way, before the 8 a.m. rush hour, she could complete three orders worth at least 400 yuan, which will make the rest of the day stress-free.

In the first days after she became a Didi driver, Ma was too obsessed with picking orders to have time for food or water. In those days, her three meals a day usually consisted of pancakes bought at roadside stands. But as her experience accumulated, she could handle her meals with ease now.

Private Car drivers are required to upload three photos – personal appearance and the car's internal and external appearances – each day as a routine inspection item. Ma never had her points deducted for this item. She bought scores of the same white shirt and changes for a clean one each day.

Ma skips a meal to visit her father who is hospitalized for chemo treatment. [Photo/news.china.com.cn]

She said her business went south once years ago, suddenly increasing her financial pressure, especially when her sexagenarian father was diagnosed of lung cancer and her son entered primary school. Chemo treatments cost Ma a lot of money. Ma said she was grateful that Didi came into her life, which improved her income and her life style.