(Ecns.cn)—It's rush hour in downtown Beijing. You're waiting for a bus that never comes on time. There are no available taxis anywhere. It's a half-hour walk to the nearest subway stop. All of a sudden, a man driving a Mercedes-Benz pulls over and asks if you need a ride. Would you go with him?
For the past 13 years, Wang Yong, a 36-year-old Beijing man originally from Shaoyang of central China's Hunan Province, has been offering such rides to complete strangers at no charge.
Wang stops in front of the Yuanda Road East bus stop between 7:30 am and 8:00 am nearly every day, offering a free ride to anyone going in the same direction. Before moving to Shiji Cheng, he did the same thing at the 334 bus stop in Huilongguan.
Wang, who is now known as the "free ride king," came to Beijing at the age of 22 and started working as a graphic designer. He has now become a very successful entrepreneur.
Wang's first passenger was an elderly lady on a very rainy day in 1998, the second year after he bought a car. "I saw an old lady stumbling alone in the rain, and I thought of my mother," Wang said. He took the old lady home, where her son and daughter-in-law were so moved that they treated Wang like an honored guest.
"The feeling of doing a good deed was so strong," Wang recalled. Inspired by that first experience, Wang then embarked on a free-ride crusade.
Wang's family discouraged him due to safety concerns, but failed to change his mind. One night, as he was riding along and chatting with a young guy about carpooling, the guy suddenly asked him, "Aren't you afraid of letting someone dangerous into your car?" "I am not," Wang said. When the passenger got out, he turned and said to Wang, "Be careful, not everyone is good."
Wang became frustrated with the lack of trust in modern urban society. "In the small village where I grew up everyone knows each other, and we greet each other and help each other. But in the city people seem to live in virtual worlds because of technology. Our hearts seem closed off to others, and trust has become so difficult."
The free rides also offer a communication platform, Wang said. There was once a man and woman who met in his car that later became husband and wife, he recalled.
Wang encourages other drivers to follow his example, saying that about 70 percent of private cars on the roads carry only one person. "This is really too wasteful. The price of oil is increasing, and with a relatively strained energy market it is necessary for the government to institutionalize a carpooling policy in order to conserve energy and costs, as well as improve the environment," said Wang, who has now established a long-term project goal: the institutionalization of carpooling.
Wang's story has interested many people, including director Yue Xiaolin, who invited Wang to play himself as the protagonist in his next movie, Urban Free Ride. As the only non-professional actor, Wang did not seem nervous about it. "I would just be playing myself," he said, "doing the same things I normally do."
