A couple of “only-in-China” moments happened to me in the past week. Both involved very minor amounts of money.

The first instance was in Changchun in Jilin province in northeast China. Upon arrival at the airport, we headed out to the taxi stand, where half a dozen taxis stood waiting.

Because I’ve learned from past experience that some taxi drivers don’t want to give receipts, which the bean counters at McClatchy need to process expense reports, we surveyed taxi drivers for one that would use the installed taxi meter that can issue a receipt at the end of a fare. Most taxis in China have these meters.

To my astonishment, no taxi driver accepted. They said the fares mandated by local authorities were too low. They didn’t want to raise the flag on the meter. I complained to a security guard nearby. There’s no taxi that can offer a receipt! He shrugged.

We negotiated with one driver. He agreed to offer us extra receipts from the tolls on the expressway. That way we could sum it up to the proper total that he demanded.

He grumbled the whole way about how little his fare was going to be.

At first, I found this a little irksome. But on reflection, I sort of admired the taxi drivers. The local authorities apparently had imposed an impractical limit on fares, and the cabbies rebelled in the only way they could. The security guard understood and sympathized.

The second incident was bizarre – at least to my eyes – but also understandable.

Upon arriving in Hefei, capital of Anhui province, yesterday, we discovered that the flight to Fuyang had been cancelled. In a hospitable fashion, China Eastern airlines had arranged a bus for passengers for the four-hour trip to Fuyang. The trip would be free.

Once on the bus, a few passengers grew annoyed. Upon inquiring, I learned that the driver opted for a pot-holed toll-free road rather than the super highway, which required paying a toll. Clearly, China Eastern had given him toll money. But he decided to pocket the cash and take the slow route, inconveniencing passengers with a longer, bumpier journey. When someone protested, he claimed he didn’t know how to get on the highway on-ramp. When we passed another highway ramp, a passenger pointed it out to him. He drove on, pretending not to hear.

It was the equivalent of taking surface roads in Los Angeles, rather than I-405.

If that bus had been full of Westerners, they probably would have wrung the driver’s neck. But the Chinese didn’t rebel. The driver chiseled, probably making an extra $25. No one wanted to lose face making a scene with him. Everyone understood what was going on.

It was a minor inconvenience. I thought back to times in South America, where bus drivers would be in cahoots with armed bandits, pulling buses over at remote spots where everyone would be robbed.

Better to lose half an hour on a slow road than my possessions at gunpoint.