China -- Revisited 2013 [#7]

The Last Day of the Year

On the day after the day after we arrived in China, rested and weathering the colds we had brought from New York, we climbed into Edward's BMW for the drive to the villages where Edward's father and mother grew up and where much of the extended family still live.  We followed Edward's father and mother, who were riding in another BMW.

City turned to countryside.  We left the city streets for an expressway that resembles an American Interstate, smooth, fast, in excellent shape.

About two hours in we stopped at a rest area to gas up, use the restrooms, and get something from the McDonald's that was part of the complex.  Edward bought a hamburger, but we declined.  I didn't go in, thinking, surely, that it was too early in our trip to crave something so essentially American and familiar. Now that the experience is over, I wish I had gone in to see how it differed from American franchises. 

The most interesting and unusual thing about that rest area was not the row of outdoor sinks for the bathroom facilities, but the display of wrecked cars close by the parking lot.  Sobering.  The signs warn of the consequences of speed and drunken driving -- at least, that is what I was told.  But the mashed cars speak a universal language. I wonder whether a similar exhibit would work in American Interstate rest areas.

From the expressway we passed high speed rail tracks that run north and south, elevated above the farm land that extends toward the mountains on one side and toward the ocean on the other.  At one point we saw the ocean. At another point we were told that we were driving as close to Taiwan as one could get on the mainland.

We saw no police anywhere, but we were told that there were speed checkpoints equipped with cameras and radar.  Speeding tickets arrive in the mail.  It is an interesting system, one that cuts down on high speed chases.  When I asked for more information, Edward noted that motorists knew when the speed cameras were coming up.  By law they had to be marked. That explained the periodic slowdowns in an otherwise fast journey.

Once we turned off the expressway, the countryside and the road itself changed. Four lanes became two. Traffic moved in both directions at varying speeds. Two lanes became three or even four when one needed to pass slow vehicles.  The variety of vehicles increased exponentially from the mostly high-end cars and long-haul trucks we saw on the expressway to cars, trucks, farm vehicles, scooters, and various hybrid conveyances.

Stores appeared almost at the roadside.  Construction in various stages of completeness or in-completeness appeared everywhere.

Of enormous interest to me is the use, both in China and in Korea, of bamboo for scaffolding.  So very, well, so very Asian.  Although we were, relatively speaking, only a short drive from Shenzhen, it was as if we were entering yet another China -- not the world of tourists but an older, more provocative place, one we could never have imagined.

For us, it was a world both compelling and endlessly fascinating.