Country Driving: a Journey Through China From Farm to Factory
“I usually rented Jettas or Santanas, and I made weekend jaunts all around the north—to the Eastern Qing tombs, to the old imperial summer resort at Chengde. A couple of times I drove the new expressway to the coast. It took less than two hours to reach the beach resort of Beidaihe, and there wasn’t much traffic. In China, city people were buying automobiles, but they still weren’t taking many long journeys, because tolls were high and drivers were inexperienced. The expressways were empty, and ...they were beautiful: four lanes, wide shoulders, perfect landscaping.
You could drive for hours without seeing a cop. It was strange, because police are prominent in other parts of Chinese life, and as a journalist I had been detained a number of times. And like any American from the Midwest, I hit an open road and instinctively kept an eye out for police. But China had yet to develop a functioning highway patrol, and the few cops I saw were simply on their way to some other destination. They always flashed their rack lights, probably because they’d seen it in American movies, but they weren’t patrolling and they weren’t in a hurry.MoreLess
You could drive for hours without seeing a cop. It was strange, because police are prominent in other parts of Chinese life, and as a journalist I had been detained a number of times. And like any American from the Midwest, I hit an open road and instinctively kept an eye out for police. But China had yet to develop a functioning highway patrol, and the few cops I saw were simply on their way to some other destination. They always flashed their rack lights, probably because they’d seen it in American movies, but they weren’t patrolling and they weren’t in a hurry.MoreLess
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