Strange Stones: Dispatches from East and West (P.S.)

by Peter Hessler

  “What’s this?” I said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “They had an accident, but they didn’t have their chop, so they used somebody else’s. Then they brought this page to replace it. Now you can write your report on their page, and next time bring a piece of paper with your chop, so the next person can use it. Understand?”

  I didn’t—he had to explain this arrangement three times. Finally it dawned on me that the wrecked bumper, which had never been my fault, and in a sense wasn’t Wei Ziqi’s fault, either, because of the unexpected front end, would now be blamed on the U.S.-China Tractor Association. “But you shouldn’t say it happened in the countryside,” Mr. Wang said. “That’s too complicated. Just say you had an accident in our parking lot.”

  He wrote out a sample report and Leslie copied it, because her written Chinese was much better than mine. I signed my name across the tractor chop. The next time I rented a car, Mr. Wang told me that the insurance had covered everything. He never hassled me about bringing in a chopped paper, and I decided to leave it at that—I was an old customer, as Mr. Wang liked to say.

  When you live in China as a foreigner, there are two critical moments of recognition. The first occurs immediately upon arrival, when you are confronted with your own ignorance. Language, customs, history—all of it has to be learned, and the task seems impossible. Then, just as you begin to catch on, you realize that everybody else feels pretty much the same way. The place changes too fast; nobody in China has the luxury of being confident in his knowledge. Who shows a peasant how to find a factory job? How does a former Maoist learn to start a business? Who has the slightest clue how to run a car rental agency? Everything is figured out on the fly; the people are masters at improvisation. This is the second moment of recognition, and it’s even more frightening than the first. Awareness of your own ignorance is a lonely feeling, but there’s little consolation in sharing it with 1.3 billion neighbors.

  On the road it’s particularly horrifying. China still doesn’t have many drivers—when I got my license, there were only twenty-eight automobiles per every thousand people, which is about the same rate that the United States had in 1915. But a 2004 World Health Organization report found that China, while having only 3 percent of the world’s vehicles, accounted for 21 percent of its traffic fatalities. It’s a nation of new drivers, and the transition has been so rapid that many road patterns come directly from pedestrian life—people drive the way they walk. They like to move in packs, and they tailgate whenever possible. They rarely use turn signals. If they miss an exit on a highway, they simply pull onto the shoulder, shift into reverse, and get it right the second time. After years of long queues, Chinese people have learned to be ruthless about cutting in line, an instinct that is disastrous in traffic jams. Toll booths are hazardous for the same reason. Drivers rarely check their rearview mirrors, perhaps because they never use such an instrument when they travel on foot or by bicycle. Windshield wipers are considered a distraction, and so are headlights.

  In fact, the use of headlights was banned in Beijing until the mid-1980s, when Chinese officials began going overseas in increasing numbers. These trips were encouraged by governments in Europe and the United States, in the hope that glimpses of democracy would encourage China’s leaders to rethink their policies. In 1983, Chen Xitong, the mayor of Beijing, made one such visit to New York. During his meetings with Mayor Ed Koch, Chen made a crucial observation: Manhattan drivers turn on their lights at night. When Chen returned to China, he decreed that Beijing motorists do the same. It’s unclear what political conclusions Chen drew from his encounters with American democracy—the man ended up in prison for corruption—but at least he did his part for traffic safety. Nevertheless, there’s still enough debate about headlight use to merit a question on the written driving exam:

  278. During the evening, a driver should

  a) turn on the brights.

  b) turn on the normal lights.

  c) turn off the lights.

  Recently, I picked up a study booklet for the exam. It consisted of 429 multiple-choice questions and 256 true-false queries, any of which might appear on the test. Often these questions successfully captured the spirit of the road (“True or False: In a taxi, it’s fine to carry a small amount of explosive material”), but I wasn’t convinced that they helped people learn to drive correctly. After carefully studying the document, though, I realized that it was descriptive rather than prescriptive. It didn’t teach people how to drive; it taught you how people drove.

  77. When overtaking another car, a driver should pass

  a) on the left.

  b) on the right.

  c) wherever, depending on the situation.

  354. If you are driving past a big puddle and there are pedestrians next to the water, you should

  a) accelerate.

  b) slow down and make sure that the water does not splash them.

  c) continue at the same speed straight through the puddle.

  80. If, while preparing to pass a car, you notice that it is turning left, making a U-turn, or passing another vehicle, you should

  a) pass on the right.

  b) do not pass.

  c) honk, accelerate, and pass on the left.

  Lots of answers involved honking. In Chinese automobiles, the horn is essentially neurological—it channels the driver’s reflexes. People honk constantly, and at first all horns sound the same, but over time you learn to distinguish variations and interpret them correctly. In this sense, it’s as complicated as the language. Spoken Chinese is tonal, which means that a single syllable can have different meanings depending on whether it is flat, rising, falling and rising, or falling sharply. Similarly, a Chinese horn is capable of at least ten distinct meanings. A solid hooooonnnnkkkkk is intended to attract attention. A double sound—hooooonnnnkkkkk, hooooonnnnkkkkk—indicates irritation. There’s a particularly long hooooooooonnnnnnnnnkkkkkk which means that the driver is stuck in traffic, has exhausted curb-sneaking options, and would like everybody else on the road to disappear. A responding hooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnkkkkkkkkkkkk proves that they aren’t going anywhere. There’s a stuttering, staggering honk honk hnk hnk hnk hnk hnk hnk that represents pure panic. There’s the afterthought honk—the one that rookie drivers make if they are too slow to hit the button before a situation resolves itself. And there’s a short, simple honk that says, “Nothing actually happened, but my hands are still on the wheel, and this horn continues to serve as an extension of my nervous system.” Other honks can be found on the exam:

  353. When passing an elderly person or a child, you should

  a) slow down and make sure you pass safely.

  b) continue at the same speed.

  c) honk the horn to tell them to watch out.

  269. When you enter a tunnel, you should

  a) honk and accelerate.

  b) slow down and turn on your lights.

  c) honk and maintain speed.

  355. When driving through a residential area, you should

  a) honk like normal.

  b) honk more than normal, in order to alert residents.

  c) avoid honking, in order to avoid disturbing residents.

  The second accident wasn’t my fault, either. I was driving in the countryside, and a dog darted out from behind a house and lunged at my Jetta. This is a common problem—dogs, like everybody else in China, aren’t quite accustomed to having automobiles around. I swerved, but it was too late; the dog thudded against the front of the car. When Leslie and I returned the Jetta, the three men were smoking cigarettes beside the company evaluation sign. Everybody at Capital Motors was still doing a bang-up job:

  CUSTOMER SATISFACTION RATING: 90%

  EFFICIENCY RATING: 97%

  APPROPRIATE SERVICE DICTION RATING: 98%

  SERVICE ATTITUDE RATING: 99%

  Mr. Wang inspected the Jetta and noted cheerfully that the plastic cover for the right signal light had been smashed. He asked what I
had hit.

  “A dog,” I said.

  “Gou mei wenti?” he said. “The dog didn’t have a problem, did it?”

  “The dog had a problem,” I said. “It died.”

  Mr. Wang’s smile got bigger. “Did you eat it?”

  I couldn’t tell if he was joking—he was a dog-owner himself, and I had seen him playing with his pet in the office. “It wasn’t that kind of dog,” I said. “It was one of those tiny little dogs.”

  “Well, sometimes if a driver hits a big dog, he just throws it in the trunk, takes it home, and cooks it,” he said. He charged us twelve dollars for a new signal-light cover—it was too minor for the insurance, and there was no need to call in the U.S.-China Tractor Association.

  Every Chinese applicant for a license must enroll in a certified course, at his own expense, and he must spend at least fifty-eight hours in training. This suggests a high degree of standardization, but much depends on the instructor, who is called a jiaolian, or “coach.” Often, coaches have developed their own theories and regimens, like the martial-arts masters of old. Wei Ziqi’s coach disdained front-end vehicles, and he also forced his students to begin every maneuver in second gear. It was more challenging, he said; first gear would only make them lazy. Another woman I know had a coach who forbade the use of turn signals, because they distracted other drivers. When Leslie decided to learn to drive stick, she hired a private instructor in Beijing. I had doubts about whether this would be effective, but I knew who the most obvious alternative coach would be, so I held my tongue. On Leslie’s first lesson, the coach introduced himself, sat in the passenger seat, and adjusted the rearview mirror so that it faced him.

  “How am I going to see what’s behind me?” Leslie asked.

  “I’ll tell you what’s behind you,” the coach said. “You don’t need to worry about that.” He was like the martial-arts guru who blindfolds his pupil: trust is the first step toward mastery.

  Recently, I went to observe some courses at the Public Safety Driving School in the southeastern city of Lishui. Local car ownership was still low—only twenty households out of every thousand had bought a car within the past six months. But that was twice the previous year’s rate, and the city’s factory economy was in the middle of a boom. The driving school was busy, and classes moved through three stages: the parking range, the driving range, and the road.

  One afternoon, I watched six students embark on their first day. An instructor called Coach Tang began by raising the hood of a red Santana. He pointed out the engine, the radiator, the battery. He showed them how to unscrew the gas cap. The door was next—the students practiced opening and closing it. Then he identified the panel instruments and the pedals. The students circled the Santana warily, fiddling with parts, like the blind men and the elephant. Finally, after an hour, they were allowed to enter the vehicle. Each of them sat in the driver’s seat, where they shifted repeatedly from first to fifth gear, with the engine off. Watching this made me wince, and after a while I said to Coach Tang, “Isn’t that bad for the car?”

  “No,” he said. “It’s fine.”

  “I think it might be bad if the motor’s off,” I said.

  “It’s completely fine,” Coach Tang said. “We do it all the time.” In China, instructors of any type are traditionally respected without question, and I decided to keep my mouth shut. But it wasn’t easy. For the next step, the students learned to use the clutch by setting the parking brake, starting the engine, shifting into first gear, and then releasing the clutch while adding gas. The motor whined against the force of the brake; the torque dipped the front end up and down. By the end of the day, you could have fried an egg on the Santana’s hood, and my palms began to sweat every time another driver gunned the engine. I could practically hear my father’s voice—he’s a good amateur mechanic, and few things anger him more than mindless abuse of an automobile.

  Nobody was allowed to operate the vehicle until the second day of class. There were four men and two women, and all of them were younger than forty. Each had paid more than three hundred dollars for the course—a lot of money in a city where the monthly minimum wage was roughly seventy-five dollars. Only one person came from a household that currently owned an automobile. The others told me that someday they might buy one, and the university students—there were four of them—believed that a driver’s license would look good on a résumé. “It’s something you should be able to do, like swimming,” a student named Wang Yanheng told me. “In the future, so many people in China are going to have cars.” He was a senior, majoring in information technology. The only person from a home with automobiles (three) was a nineteen-year-old sociology major whose father owned a plastics factory. When I asked what the factory produced, the woman ran a finger along the rubber lining of the Santana’s window. “This is one of the things we make,” she said.

  The students spent ten days on the parking range, and during that time they performed exactly three movements: a ninety-degree turn into a parking spot, the same maneuver in reverse, and parallel parking. Every day, for as many as six hours, they practiced these turns over and over. Like any good martial arts master, Coach Tang was strict. “What are you doing?” he yelled, when one student brushed against a pole. “You must have forgotten your brain today!” “Don’t hold the gearshift loosely like that!” he shouted at another man. “If you do, your father will curse you!” Sometimes he slapped a student’s hand. There was a strict rule against head turns—even in reverse, you were supposed to rely on mirrors only.

  The next step was the driving range, where the skill set became more demanding. Drivers were required to stop within twenty-five centimeters of a painted line, and they followed an obstacle course of tight turns. The final skill was the “single-plank bridge”—a concrete riser, a foot high and only slightly wider than a tire. Students had to aim the car perfectly, so that two wheels perched atop the riser—first the left tires, then the right. If a single wheel slipped, they failed the exam. The students spent most of their ten days practicing the single-plank bridge, and I asked a coach why it was so important. “Because it’s very difficult,” he said.

  “Right, I understand that,” I said. “But when is it useful on the road?”

  “Well, if you’re crossing a bridge with a hole, and there’s only one place where the tires can go, then it’s important to be able to do this.”

  The Chinese have fantastic driving imaginations—the written exam was full of situations like this. They seemed ridiculously unlikely, but the level of detail was such that I suspected it must have happened to somebody, somewhere:

  279. If your car breaks down atop the tracks of a railroad crossing, you should

  a) abandon it there.

  b) find some way to move it immediately.

  c) leave it there temporarily until you can get somebody to repair it.

  The course ended with a week and a half on the road, and I accompanied another class on their final day. With the coach in the passenger seat, students took turns driving along a two-lane rural road. There were certain movements they had to perform: shift to fifth, downshift to first, make a U-turn, stop at an imitation traffic light. They had been instructed to honk whenever they pulled out, or made a turn, or encountered anything in the road. They honked at cars, tractors, and donkey carts. They honked at every single pedestrian. Sometimes they passed another car from the driving school, and then both vehicles honked happily, as if greeting an old friend. At noon, the class had lunch at a local restaurant, where everybody drank beer, including the coach, and then they continued driving. One student told me that a day earlier they got so drunk that they had to cancel the afternoon class.

  Throughout the course, there had been no variables, no emphasis on responding to situations. Instead, students learned and rehearsed a small number of set pieces, which they would later combine and apply to actual city driving. It reminded me of how Chinese schoolchildren learn to write: they begin with specific strokes, copying
them over and over, and then they combine these into characters, which are also written repeatedly. In China, repetition is the cornerstone of education, and virtually every new skill is approached in this manner. It’s one reason the Chinese have been far more successful at building assembly-line factories than at innovation.

  It also explains some of the problems with driving in China. On the final day of class, a student begged me to let him drive my rental car back to the road range, for more practice. In a moment of extremely poor judgment, I agreed, and those turned out to be the most terrifying seven miles I had ever experienced in China. Twice I had to yell to keep him from passing on blind turns; another time, I grabbed the wheel to prevent him from veering into a car. He never checked the rearview mirror; he honked at everything that moved. The total absence of turn signals was the least of our problems. He came within inches of hitting a parked tractor, and he almost nailed a cement wall. When we finally made it to the range, I could have fallen on my knees and kissed the single-plank bridge.

  Foreigners in Beijing often said to me, “I can’t believe you’re driving in this country.” To which I responded, “I can’t believe you get into cabs and buses driven by graduates of Chinese driving courses.” Out on the road, everybody was lost—une génération perdue—but it felt better to be the one behind the wheel.

  I had nothing to do with the third accident. I couldn’t even drive—I had broken my left kneecap while hiking on the Great Wall, and the Jetta that we had rented was standard transmission. Despite having served as a blindfolded acolyte of a local driving master, Leslie still didn’t feel comfortable behind the wheel, and one afternoon she asked me to accompany her on some errands. I sat in the back, my broken leg propped up, giving advice every time she stalled. (“More gas!”) It was snowing; traffic was miserable; we spent two hours hustling in and out of shops. After the last stop, Leslie turned the key and the Jetta lurched straight ahead into a brick wall.