Abstract:

This documentary portrays the lives of motorcycle taxi drivers who live and work out of a courtyard in a working-class neighborhood of Bangkok. Along with over 100 other drivers, most of them from rural areas of Thailand, they make their living by taxiing school children, market women, and businesspeople to and from their appointments. Astride Kawasakis and Hondas, they endure polluted air, dangerous driving conditions and threats from loan sharks in order to move customers through world-class traffic jams. In interviews, the men discuss their jobs, their family lives and the struggle to make ends meet, and their belief in guardian spirits, thereby revealing how traditional Thai values and lifestyles are being transformed by the forces of globalization.