Lieu, who says his given first name is too hard to pronounce, left Vietnam 20 years ago and moved to Hawai'i to go to school. After graduating from Farrington High School, he moved to Arizona to go to college. There he studied as an electronics technician.

He worked in that field for about six months on the Mainland, then came home to Hawai'i for a job with another electronics company, which promptly laid him off.

"My English speaking is terrible now," says Lieu. "I used to speak better back in '80s."

These days, he speaks Vietnamese with his friends at work in the taxi business, as well as at home.

"You have a hard time understanding me, right?"

Not so much.

Lieu, 37, lives near Waikiki.

As an independent taxi driver, his hours are set by fatherhood: He takes his daughter to school in MÅnoa, then drives his cab all day, finishing in time to pick her up on the way home.

Fares picked up during the bus strike — to 12 to 14 stops a day by his estimate, even though the distances aren't very long.

"It's fun when it's busy," he says. "Stressful when it's slow."

Two years before this snapshot was taken, on Sept. 11, 2001, business was "terrible — maybe two, three (fares) a day. That's it."

He and his family would like to move to the Mainland. Maybe back to Arizona, or to Northern California.

Especially since he has a medical condition that is aggravated by sitting, which a cab driver can't help but do — often, and for long stretches.

"Hawai'i is too expensive," says the 15-year cab-driving veteran. "Have to work and work, no time to spend with kids."

Ask him what he would do, if he could do anything, and he says he likes being independent.

"Gonna do my own business, a grocery or convenience store, a small business," he says. "But not in Hawai'i. Hawai'i is too expensive to do business."