Recently, the Flushing driving school case broke out, and many people were puzzled: Why are so many new immigrants willing to spend 1,500 yuan or even 2,000 yuan to buy a driver’s license? But in fact, the real problem is not these “buyers”, but the complex, dark and dirty industry chain.
The so-called “unwillingness to buy a license” is just a superficial phenomenon – many people never thought of taking the crooked path at the beginning. The reality is that the driving school, examiners and coaches collude with each other, setting up many obstacles openly and secretly. If you are unwilling to “pay protection fees”, they will send you to the most difficult examiner and make you suffer several times in a row. You can’t afford to waste time, energy, unfamiliarity, and poor English, and in the end, you can only “accept your bad luck”. After being repeatedly stuck, who has the energy to stick to the “formal way”? This kind of powerlessness that is being framed can only be understood by those who have experienced it.
The most ironic thing is that these so-called “fellow countrymen” who control resources – driving school owners, coaches, and even agents, are the ones who understand the plight of new immigrants the most. As a result, not only do they not help people find a way out, but they also set traps for exploitation. What they earn is not technology, but ignorance, fear, and trust in people of the same language and skin color. This is not just “Chinese people cheating Chinese people”, this is knowing that the other party has no way out and still stepping on it.
In the final analysis, buying a driver’s license is not a matter of personal “choice” at all, but some people in the immigrant community set up traps and cheat newcomers. As long as there is a group of people willing to make money from their compatriots and make quick money by relying on information gaps and language barriers, this chaos will always exist. Every immigrant who is forced to buy a license is a victim of “joint calculation” by this community and industry. This is not helping, but harvesting, not symbiosis, but mutual harm.
Some people think they are smart by making this money, but in fact, letting the vulnerable fall into the trap will ultimately destroy the reputation of the community, internal trust, and everyone’s bottom line. If these phenomena are not eradicated, the Chinese community will only become more closed, weak, and disheartening. As long as this unspoken industry rule of “defrauding one’s own people” is not eradicated, the powerlessness and pain of immigrants will not end.
