Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory

by Peter Hessler

  Officers like Yin Geng described methods of identifying these turncoat Chinese. Their hair tended to be short, like the Mongols, and they often had visible scars. They smelled shan. If you asked them the year of the emperor’s reign, they sometimes couldn’t answer correctly, because they had lost track of time. They often referred to China as nan chao, the “southern dynasty.” In one battle, Chinese soldiers captured a man named Puning, a Chinese who had been kidnapped by the Mongols. An officer described the man: “Puning had been living among the barbarians for so long and eating meat and cheese that his frame was stocky and his face was like that of a lion.” The officer continued, “He was fat, his hair was short, and he walked like a duck.” In ancient China, race was essentially cultural, and a person who lived among barbarians could lose his “Chineseness.”

  For Mongols, though, political legitimacy ultimately depended on genetics. Leadership was supposed to be confined to the direct heirs of Genghis Khan, and anybody outside this line had few ways of improving his standing. One common solution was to try to gain goods and titles from the Chinese, and David Spindler has researched a number of instances in which this strategy culminated in attacks across the Great Wall. During the 1540s, Altan Khan rose as a capable Mongol leader, eventually founding the city of Hohhot. But he found himself limited by genealogy—he was the second son of a third son. In 1550, in an attempt to gain wealth and status among his Mongol peers, he turned southward, leading tens of thousands of Mongols on a surprise attack northeast of Beijing. At that time, the Ming fortifications consisted mostly of crude stone walls, which the Mongols easily penetrated. They pillaged for two weeks, killing and capturing thousands of Chinese. After that, the Ming began using mortar on a large scale to improve fortifications around the capital.

  Altan Khan’s oldest son, known as the Imperial Prince, tried another strategy for dealing with genealogical shortcomings. He married dozens of women from important Mongol families, hoping to solidify alliances. But he ran into financial problems, which he solved in the simplest way possible: he sent the women back. Lacking money and accompanied by their families, the ex-wives began visiting Chinese wall garrisons, demanding gifts from the Chinese. In 1576, after one such appeal was rejected, some Mongols formed a raiding party and penetrated a gap in a remote part of the defense network. The region was so rugged that the Ming hadn’t seen a need for extensive walls, but the Mongols got through, killing twenty-nine Chinese. The Ming responded with another major wall-building campaign, this time using brick, which allowed construction on even the steepest terrain.

  Nowadays, outside of Beijing, brick walls still cling to sheer cliffs, and tourists often wonder: Was it really necessary to build defenseworks in a place like this? But Mongols were indeed capable of attacking such remote regions, and sometimes a leader’s position on Genghis Khan’s family tree was a major factor. Low genealogical status could initiate a chain of events that swept southward, resulting in violence against the Ming. Spindler calls the incident of 1576 “the Raid of the Scorned Mongol Women”—a failed harem that eventually inspired the stunning Great Wall of Beijing.

  THE PARKING LOT AT the Mausoleum of Genghis Khan was full of black Santanas with tinted windows. My heart always sank at such a sight—it was like watching a flock of crows settle into a quiet forest. In rural China, black Santanas are cadre cars, and if they show up en masse at a tourist destination it usually means that a junket is in full swing. When I arrived at the mausoleum, it was early afternoon but many of the cadres were drunk from their lunchtime banquets. They stumbled out of Santanas, shouting and laughing in the parking lot. I followed a group of three Chinese men as they staggered up the steps to the entrance, where they initiated an argument with the attendant. He was Mongolian, and he asked them for the standard admission price of thirty-five yuan per ticket. It was less than five dollars.

  “How ’bout this,” slurred one of the cadres. “I’ll give you a hundred for three.”

  “Three tickets cost one hundred and five,” the Mongolian said.

  “Special price,” the cadre said. “Give special price. One hundred.”

  “We can’t do that. It’s thirty-five each. One hundred and five.”

  “How ’bout this,” the cadre said. “I give you one hundred.”

  “One hundred and five.”

  “One hundred.”

  Each man spoke very slowly, and they continued this inane conversation for several minutes. In China, admissions to state-run tourist sites are nonnegotiable, and I couldn’t figure out why the attendant remained so patient, until I realized that he was also intoxicated. He slumped against his desk; the ticket booth reeked of grain alcohol. Inside the gate, three buildings were shaped like massive ger, traditional Mongol tents, their roofs decorated in tile of burnt orange and deep blue. Everywhere I saw drunk cadres: they staggered through hallways; they tripped down steps; they sat red-faced in the shade, heads in their hands. They wobbled in front of exhibits, trying to read inscriptions about the history of Genghis Khan and the Yuan dynasty.

  Exhibits appeared in Chinese, Mongolian, and English. As in many Chinese museums, there were subtle shifts between languages. One English sign read:

  GENGHIS KHAN IS CONSIDERED BY THE WORLD AS A GREAT STRATEGIST AND STATESMAN.

  The Chinese version said:

  IN THE HISTORY OF THE CHINESE PEOPLE, GENGHIS KHAN WAS A GREAT STRATEGIST AND STATESMAN.

  In China, people often speak of Genghis Khan as if he were Chinese, at least in the cultural sense, because he founded a dynasty that ruled China. And from the Chinese perspective, Mongolia was a natural part of the empire—it had been ruled by the Qing dynasty until their collapse in 1912. During the twentieth century, Mongolia proper became a Soviet satellite and then an independent nation, but Inner Mongolia remained under Chinese rule. After Mao Zedong came to power, he encouraged Han Chinese settlement in the region, and nowadays the population is over 80 percent Chinese.

  The Chinese have also occupied the history just as efficiently. At the Mausoleum of Genghis Khan, there is no body; the true burial place of the great leader is unknown, although historians believe it’s located in independent Mongolia. The Chinese built the mausoleum in the mid-1950s, as a way of symbolizing their authority in Inner Mongolia. The exhibits put a Chinese spin on Mongol history:

  Kublai Khan, one of Genghis Khan’s grandchildren, founded the Yuan dynasty, which was a united multinational state with extensive territory. He carried forward the traditions of the central plains of China. He encouraged the development of agriculture, handicraft, and textile industries by improving productive means as well as science and technology. Trade and navigation were well developed, which promoted the cultural communication with western countries.

  The mausoleum’s central room features a row of coffins, supposedly belonging to Genghis Khan and his closest relatives. Outside the room, a Mongolian tour guide approached me, speaking Chinese. She asked where I was from, and when I answered, she smiled wistfully. “The Great America,” she said. “It’s like Genghis Khan used to be.”

  I didn’t know exactly how to respond to that. Among the flocks of cadres she looked as out of place as many of my hitchhikers—dyedred hair, silver earrings, tight jeans. She was twenty-four years old, with high cheekbones and the long thin eyes of the steppe people. I was still thinking about the Great America when she spoke again.

  “This isn’t really Genghis Khan’s tomb,” she said. “I work here, but I want you to know that this place is fake. Those coffins are empty, and nobody knows where his tomb really is. Anyway, according to tradition there were special ceremonial objects that contained his soul.”

  She mentioned the names of the objects, but the words were unfamiliar; I asked her to write them in my notebook. For a moment she stared helplessly at the pen and paper. “I’m sorry,” she said at last. “I’m too drunk to write.”

  She gave me an impromptu tour of the exhibits, pointing out mistakes and exaggerations. She t
old me that Genghis Khan had been born in what is now independent Mongolia—that detail was important to her. She believed that Inner Mongolia had become an ecological disaster, because of all the Chinese-style farming in the region. “That’s why you have dust storms in Beijing every spring,” she said. “Anyway, we’re a fallen race. We used to be great, but now we’re nothing. We don’t have a united country—there’s Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and then the Buryats in Russia. And yet at one point we were the greatest race in the world. We’re not the same as the Chinese; those are two totally different races. Mongolians like freedom, but that doesn’t matter to the Chinese. Have you noticed that Mongolians drink a lot?”

  I said yes, this was something I had noticed.

  “It’s because of the psychology,” she said. “It’s bad for your psychology to fall so far. And there isn’t anything for Mongolians to do about it, so we drink.”

  We walked outside into the blazing sunshine. Beyond the mausoleum walls I could see flat dry scrubland, and the wind blew the woman’s hair around her face. “Of course the Mongols killed a lot of people in the old days,” she said. “But they also had great advances in culture and religion. It’s like Hitler—people might say that he’s bad, but at least he was capable of leading a country. You can’t deny that.”

  “Do you think Hitler was bad or good?” I said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “That’s not important for me to decide. What matters is that he left his name for history. You can call him fascist or anything else you want to, but he succeeded in leaving his name. The same is true for Genghis Khan. The whole world knew him and they still know him. Osama bin Laden is the same. When he attacked America, I was happy for him and the Afghans. Nothing against America, but the Taliban were a small race of people and they wanted to get noticed. Now everybody knows Osama bin Laden. He left his name for history, and I respect that.”

  She wavered unsteadily in the wind and asked if we could sit down. We found a bench outside the museum entrance and she rested, closing her eyes in the sunshine. “I like to talk to strangers,” she said. “Sometimes it’s easier to talk with somebody I don’t know. And today it’s easier because I’m drunk. Usually I’m not as drunk as this, and usually I don’t talk so freely. But there are many things in China that I don’t like. You go to this museum and they say that Genghis Khan was a Chinese hero, and it’s nonsense. He fought against the Chinese. This museum is all garbage.”

  Periodically other employees walked past, along with groups of drunken cadres, and everybody grinned when they saw us together. The woman didn’t seem to mind. “When I first started giving tours,” she said, “people complained because I talked about the Mongols—the Mongol leader, the Mongol victories, the Mongol empire. They wanted me to say it was all Chinese. So the leaders criticized me and now I have to say that it’s Chinese, but I don’t believe it. Even so, the way that I tell the stories isn’t the same as other tour guides. People tell me it’s different. I don’t know exactly how, but it’s different in some way.”

  “Maybe it’s different because you say the museum is all garbage,” I said, and she laughed.

  “It’s different because I’m different from other people,” she said. “I talk with strangers, and women aren’t supposed to do that. My boyfriend doesn’t like that.”

  On the bench she had edged closer, and now I could feel her leg against my thigh. Her breath came strong—the sickly-sweet smell of baijiu.

  “Actually,” she said, “I don’t like my boyfriend very much.”

  It seemed like a good time to change the subject, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. She studied my face closely, looking into my eyes, and finally she spoke. “Are you a spy?” she said.

  “No,” I said. “I’m a writer. I told you, I write articles and books.”

  She pressed closer. “If you’re a spy, you can tell me,” she said in a low voice. “I promise I won’t tell anybody.”

  “Honest, I’m not.”

  “Come on!” Her tone was pleading. “You’re here alone, you speak Chinese, you’re in Inner Mongolia, you drove your own car. Of course you’re a spy! Can’t you just tell me the truth?”

  “I am telling you the truth,” I said. “I’m not a spy. Anyway, why would a spy go to Genghis Khan’s mausoleum?”

  She pondered this and looked crestfallen. “I’ve always wanted to meet a spy,” she said in a small voice. “I wish you really were one.”

  The woman seemed less drunk now and she asked to write her name and phone number in my notebook, in case I ever returned. She wrote the words carefully, in both Chinese and Mongolian, and then she sketched a picture. It was the sun—childlike rays around a ball of flame.

  FOR THREE HUNDRED MILES I followed small roads through the southern borderlands of the Ordos. Usually the Great Wall was nearby, marked on my Sinomaps, but from the roads it was rarely visible. Sometimes I drove for an hour without seeing another car; when I turned on the radio, all I heard was Mongolian. Occasionally the wind picked up and a small sandstorm swept across the blacktop, the grit moving in waves like it was liquid. Near the Shaanxi border I saw two hitchhikers petting the invisible dog. One of them was an old man, and he shouted when I pulled over: “How much to Jingbian?”

  I told him I was heading in that direction anyway. Jingbian is a small city near the Great Wall; the name means “Pacify the Border.”

  “No money?” the man said in surprise. He asked where I had come from, and I said Beijing. He seemed slightly deaf—he leaned forward and shouted every time he spoke. “Can we bring these bags?” he yelled.

  “Of course,” I said. “What’s in them?”

  “Salt! It’s from my daughter’s farm!”

  I opened the back of the City Special and helped the man lift the bags—they were fifty pounds each. That was the only major food group I had been missing; now the Jeep was fully stocked with Coke, Gatorade, Oreos, Dove bars, and Ordos salt. The old man planned to sell the salt in Jingbian. The moment he got inside the vehicle he shouted another question. “Do you know Han Heliu?”

  “Who?”

  “Han Heliu! Do you know Han Heliu?”

  “No,” I said, confused. “Who is Han Heliu?”

  “He’s from our village!” the old man shouted. “He’s gone to Beijing to work! I was wondering if you had met him!”

  I told him I’d keep an eye out. The old man wore a weathered cap and rough blue cotton clothes. He was mostly toothless; a wispy beard hung from his chin. His traveling companion was the most strikingly pretty woman I ever saw in the north. She was twenty years old, with hair that had been dyed a light red; her lipstick was bright pink and a tiny beauty mark had been tattooed between her eyebrows. She wore a red silk jacket, tailored tight at the waist, with gold flowers embroidered across the front. She was small-boned, with a birdlike name—Wang Yan, which means “Swallow.” In this hard landscape she seemed completely out of place, like an exotic that had been blown off course and then alighted in the City Special. She perched stiffly in front, her back not touching the seat.

  “He’s my grandfather,” she said. “We live together in Jingbian.”

  In the backseat, the old man leaned forward. “Are you sure you’re not going to charge us?” he shouted. “It’s usually five yuan to Jingbian! We can’t pay more than that!”

  We drove south past rows of willows that had been planted in the sandy soil. Wang Yan was shy—she stared straight ahead, eyes on the road, and she answered my questions in a soft voice. She had just visited her parents at their farm; a few years ago she had migrated to Jingbian, which was the nearest township, and recently her grandfather had joined her in the small city. “All of the young people leave our village,” she said. “Nobody stays there anymore. I’m not planning to go back.” In Jingbian she worked in a beauty parlor. Among uneducated female migrants, jobs tend to be sharply divided according to looks. A pretty woman is more likely to find work in a barbershop or as a restaurant hostes
s; the plainer girls end up as waitresses or factory workers. Jobs are easier for women who are good looking, but there are also pitfalls. Most beauty parlors offer the basics—hair styling, makeup, hair-washing, and simple massages—but there are also shops that double as fronts for prostitution. It occurred to me that Wang Yan’s family had probably sent the grandfather to live with her to make sure she didn’t get into trouble.

  After twenty minutes the old man leaned forward once more. “Are you Chinese?” he shouted.

  “No. I’m American.”

  “I thought you weren’t Chinese!” he said, with a big smile. “You’re the first foreigner I’ve ever met!”

  In Jingbian I dropped them off at the beauty parlor. It was called the Jian Hua—“Build China”—and we carried the bags of salt inside. Four young men and women were working, and they greeted Wang Yan warmly. The men had the look of small-town hipsters; their hair was long and they wore leather jackets covered with zippers. It was too early for customers and they put a Madonna disk in the video player. A full-length mirror ran along one wall, and the employees pushed aside the barber chairs and practiced dance moves. They were focused on their reflections, repeating the steps over and over, trying to get it right. At the far end of the shop, Wang Yan leaned close to another mirror, fixing her road-worn hair and makeup. The grandfather stood alone near the door. Upon entering the shop he had fallen silent, and now he watched the young people intently, his face expressionless. In a room full of mirrors he was the only person not staring at himself.

  THE FARTHER I DROVE across northern China, the more I wondered what would become of all of the villages. The cities were easy to predict, at least in terms of growth—their trajectory was already laid out in tracks of cement and steel. In the countryside, though, it was impossible to imagine who would be living here in a generation. Often I stopped in a village and saw only the very old, the disabled, and the very young, because migrants left their children behind to be raised by grandparents. Workers still didn’t feel settled in the cities, although inevitably that was bound to change; it seemed likely that in the future they’d find some way to have their families closer to work. For many of the northern villages this might be the last generation where a significant number of children were still growing up in the countryside.