Memories of China
Take 3 parts smog and add 1 part of automotive wackiness; what
you have left is China's burgeoning and crazy automotive market.
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It may be telling that the first vehicle I saw upon entering
mainland China&emdash;even before I left the airport&emdash;was a
knockoff Jeep Cherokee. It looked sort of like a Cherokee, with the
same front grille and light arrangement and the same basic
proportions. But there was something wrong with it. It was too tall,
for one thing, and sat on a shorter wheelbase and narrower track. The
door handles were wrong, and at the back were two doors instead of a
liftgate. It wore military livery. Were my eyes and memory deceiving
me? Apparently not.
Knockoffs, it seems, in either partial or complete, authorized or
illegal, forms, are a phenomenon that's uniquely big here in China,
where the market for cars has exploded while the average income
hasn't. Amongst the dozens of models currently available for
consumption in the mainland, many are locally-produced versions of
vehicles sold outside of the country. The ubiquitous and almost
inevitably red Tianjin 7100, is based on the Dihatsu Charade. The
Volkswagen Santana&emdash;sort of a stretched mid-80s
Quantum&emdash;is also locally produced and, according to China
Daily, controls 55% of the country's entire car market. There are
also locally-assembled Audi 100s and A6s&emdash;with and without the
four rings, and in varying degrees of accuracy&emdash;as well as
several Korean models.
There's alö$ð -°õ0tle "Bullet ö$P,"
which the government is pushing as the replacement for the millions
of famously tippy and poorly-built miandi microvan-taxis that careen
around town (often with but two wheels on the pavement). An original
design in concept only, it borrows a lot of its front from the Acura
Integra, its 1600-cc engine from a Dihatsu or Nissan, and rear
taillights from, of all things, a Chevy Lumina minivan. To
demonstrate the strength of its fiberglass body to plant visitors,
the company that builds the things, Zhonghua, evidently trots out two
dozen men who proceed to beat it with iron bars and jump on its roof;
despite that fact, the car is notoriously easy to break.
What's really exciting about China, though, is the incredible
variety of the cars imported every year. There's a huge amount of
choice here, everything from lowly Ford Tempos (all of them, it
seems, in white) through to top-end German luxury models. These cars
come in a greater variety of powertrain and trim combinations than
are available to North Americans; it's not uncommon, for example, to
see an E-class Mercedes or Audi A6 with a 2.0-liter four.
Many individuals and foreign corporations bring in their own cars,
often at great cost. Import duties run to 250%, and cars can be tied
up for months while the necessary paperwork is completed&emdash;the
Bank of Montréal's three Toyota Crowns were snared in red tape
for nine months. (A bribe, supposedly, will speed up the process
significantly, but many corporations don't want to sully their
images, even if it means having to wait a bit.)
The net result is a car market that has everything from
everywhere&emdash;brands like Lexus and Acura, which aren't supposed
to exist out of North America and Europe, are all over the place.
(You can often tell at a glance when a car's come from the States or
Canada&emdash;it'll have bigger bumpers and a complicated
license-plate mounting kit that attaches China's wide, thin, plate to
the squarish hole common on North American models.)
Credit&emdash;or blame&emdash;for the Chinese car market's
liveliness lies with the country's relative lack of safety or
emissions standards. Airbags, even on new models, are rare, and cars
still run on leaded gas; the smog is truly horrible, far worse than
Los Angeles'.
An ironic upside to the lack of regulation is that cars here look,
well, better. European cars imported to or built in China have
smaller bumpers&emdash;the ones they were designed to have, not the
lengthened ones that have to meet North American 5 mph tests.
Unfortunately, the same lack of standards also explains why even
the most expensive models drive around with dented and misaligned
body parts; bumpers don't conform to one standard height, and their
shortened length means that sheetmetal bends even in the most minor
accidents. Repair shops, especially for cars imported privately, are
hard to come by. (Most cars, it seems, don't get fixed anyway: the
general attitude seems to say there'll be another dent there
tomorrow.)
The use of leaded gas, as bad as it is for the air&emdash;even on
a good day, seeing more than a block down the road in Beijing is
rare&emdash;means that smaller engines can generate more power, a
benefit enhanced by the lack of any emissions-control equipment. Big
cars with little engines still feel peppy; I was wafted along the
city's major expressway in a 4000-plus pound Toyota Crown with a
3-liter six at 140 km/h with nary a complaint from the engine.
It's clear that China still has a way to go to meet first-world
standards for safety and emissions, but in many ways they're right
up-to-date on many of our trends.
This can be a bad thing. The Chinese have a love affair with
sport-utility vehicles that perhaps exceeds even our own. Jeep
Cherokees&emdash;most of them produced under license by the Beijing
Jeep Corporation&emdash;in particular are everywhere, though there
are also Ford Explorers and Chevy Blazers around. A four-door
Wrangler knockoff is a military staple. Even the cops have caught
sport-ute fever: I snapped a photo of an officer lovingly polishing
the chrome on his big-tired, window-tinted, bumper guarded and
fog-lit Mitsubishi Montero.
The Chinese have also picked up on a lot of our kitschy styling
trends. A Mercedes S600 parked in front of my hotel (incidentally one
of the only Mercedes I saw during my entire stay with its
three-pointed star still in place) had pimpmobile-pwoofly fur seat
covers with gold doilies. Most SUVs are decked out in full battle
gear, from chrome brush guards to sets of huge halogen lights. Chrome
fender trim is common, as is mirrored glass and, once in a while,
curtained rear windows. Needless to say, there's a profusion of
spoilers short and tall, though huge alloy wheels and low-profile
tires are for some reason still rare.
One thing that is distinctly un-American is the huge number of
big, upright sedans with too-tall roofs like the aforementioned
Santana, as well as cars like the Toyota Crown and Nissan Cedric
("VIP," say its flanks proudly.) They're cars that have been
specifically designed to be driven around in, with cavernous
rear-seat accommodations that often include minibars and televisions.
Most of them have front-fender lights and mountings for flags; all of
them are equipped with powerful 6- or 8-cylinder engines.
Most such cars are driven by local drivers, who are the only ones
able to make sense of cities like Beijing, with its four ring roads
and dozens of unmarked side streets. Being a driver, in China at
least, is a pretty honorable profession: the pay is good, especially
with foreign companies, and driving a big luxury car carries a
certain prestige; it's certainly better than hurling a miandi around
town for 1 RMB (about 20¢) per kilometre.
Being a driver's a full-time job here. Not only do you drive the
boss around, you've got to take care of the car. In a city like
Beijing with its pollution and the constant airborne dust from
construction sites, this means whipping the feather duster out of the
trunk whenever you're waiting, seeking out sidewalk car washes, and
getting in line for gas.
Driving in China is no piece of cake. While the country's
automotive density is still relatively light, drivers have to contend
with thousands of bicycles that weave in and out of traffic, rarely
staying in their designated lanes (which are as wide as those for
cars) or paying attention to their traffic signals. Not to mention
the throngs of pedestrians that surge uncontrolled through every
intersection, traffic lights and police exhortations be damned.
Thankfully, some major intersections have pedestrian under- or
over-passes&emdash;with ramps which hurrying bicycles can use, adding
to the chaos.
In fact, waving cops on pedestals in the middle of major junctions
notwithstanding, there's very little adherence to any kind of traffic
laws. You scoot your car through an intersection by sheer force of
will, tootling the horn at anyone in your way. (In a fit of
thoughtfulness, I realize that this may be why the Jeep Cherokee has
sold so well over here&emdash;its horn easily outclasses most wimpy
Asian models'.) For what it's worth, most Chinese drivers have
excellent lane discipline and always use their turn signals. But when
a police Jeep is backing down the sidewalk at breakneck speed right
towards you, flashing turn signals are small consolation indeed.
Never mind driving. Just finding a parking spot is a nightmare.
Almost any location that will fit a car is fair game, so long as you
can find it: sidewalks are littered with idling vehicles, chauffeurs
patiently waiting for the boss to finish his or her shopping. Taxis
queue around hotels in endless concentric circles, paying just to
stay in line.
Just entering a parking lot can be a huge chore: try getting past
the guy washing his van in the hospital driveway, or getting rid of
the "watch-your-car" people that inevitably accost you in front of
the larger department stores. Parking space, unlike space on the
roads, is incredibly tight.
Despite the lack of traffic on its roads, and the generally good
condition of same (smooth pavement and well-marked lanes, signs on
major streets mounted high and complete with English translations),
it's hard to imagine China as a fun place to drive. The four ring
roads are the only ones that have any curves, and they're so gentle
that you never have to give the wheel more than a finger-nudge.
Most of the other wide boulevards, so good-looking in propaganda
videos when tanks roll down them, are an utter bore, stretching
endlessly off into the smoggy horizon. So far, gridlock isn't a
problem, but as the number of cars continues to grow, it's bound to
become one, as nobody here gives up their right of way, ever.
Staying on those streets is what you'll for the most part want to
do: the back roads are mostly unmarked and are even more
bicycle-infested. The narrow sidewalks also can't hold their throngs
of pedestrians, who spill randomly out onto the roadway, shopping
bags cleaving through the air. Unfortunately, most gas stations are
on these back roads, and lineups often stretch twenty cars long. (Gas
is cheap, though, at just under forty cents a litre.)
Then again, most pedestrians in China automatically give cars the
right of way in the first place&emdash;mass, and a horn, win over
hand gestures and verbal protestations any day. Speed and parking
enforcement is rare; in ten days, I saw but one motorcycle-bound cop
pull over a car, only to later tear up the ticket, and can count on
one hand the number of parking tickets I saw.
Still, despite its negatives, China's automotive scene is a
fascinating one: where else can you see such a huge variety of cars,
good, bad or just plain strange? Where else do you see names like
"Semi-Roof" or "Bongo Friendee" or "Sunny Super Saloon," save for
Japan? Where else do the police stand on yellow-and-red pedestals to
direct eight lanes of motor- and pedal-driven traffic?
Speaking of the police, there's one now, in the blue and white
car, waving and honking, trying to squirt through the intersection.
Hey, wait a minute. Is that a Mercedes he's driving? Maybe all that
stuff about Deng's economic reforms wasn't hot air after all.