Country Driving: A Chinese Road Trip

Country Driving was originally on my April book purchase list. Perhaps sales were too good—Dangdang and Joyo were both out of stock, and the printing house was busy reprinting. I suspect this was a hunger marketing strategy by the bookseller, so I only bought it back this month. Among the several books purchased at the same time, I read this one first, simply because its cover design is very beautiful—a two-way two-lane rural road stretching endlessly into the boundless distance, not knowing who has driven here or who will come here.

Actually, before buying it I already knew the general content of this book. Besides, many books’ main themes can be guessed just from the title—social contradictions, economic development, etc. The subtitle of Country Driving is “A Chinese Road Trip from Farm to Factory.” I think the author must want to reflect China’s internal contradictions, similar to the book China in Liangzhuang from a while ago. Let’s see how this foreigner understands China.

The author of this book, Peter Hessler (Chinese name He Wei), is a New Yorker correspondent in Beijing and a contributor to National Geographic. He obtained his Chinese driver’s license in 2001. Over the next seven years, he drove around China’s countryside and cities, then wrote these experiences into the book Country Driving, which was published in the United States in 2010. After Shanghai Translation Publishing House obtained the rights, they published this book in January this year. The copy I got is already the fourth printing in May. When I finished reading, I looked at other people’s comments on Douban and found some deletions involving ethnic and religious issues—slightly regrettable.

The book is divided into three parts. It first narrates the author’s journey of over ten thousand miles across northern China, following the Great Wall westward from the coast of the East China Sea. The second part focuses on the author’s several years of rural living experience in a village below the Ming Great Wall in Huairou, Beijing, featuring the story of a peasant family’s transition from farming to commerce. The last part writes about life scenes in industrial towns in Zhejiang. The author says he wants to explore the economy, trace the source of development, and investigate individuals’ responses to change. But he doesn’t do macro analysis; instead, he narrates the experiences of ordinary Chinese people to show the essence of China’s transformation. Below is a speech by the author about this book. I didn’t understand much, but I believe it will be helpful for some English experts.

I thought of some things similar to the book. During this period, rural areas in the west are becoming increasingly desolate. Young people have all left, and only the elderly and children remain in the villages. These children will likely be the last generation in these villages. My hometown is the same. When I was young, there were still young people in the village, and people were building new houses. Now when I go back every year for Chinese New Year, the village is cold and quiet. I can’t even find peers my age—there’s no New Year atmosphere at all. The village hasn’t seen any newly completed buildings for many years. I often think this village will soon disappear. Villagers will all move to towns to settle, the houses left in the village will become more and more dilapidated, the land will be untended and overgrown with weeds, but it can’t be sold because the land is collective asset—they only have usage rights. Country Driving quotes a researcher from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences saying that China’s land will eventually be privatized. But rural elders have very strong land concepts and often tell me the wisdom of “fallen leaves return to their roots.” I agree with their thinking, but will those young people who grew up in more superior material conditions think the same? Probably not. Many of my uncles have bought houses in the city. Their next generation—my cousins—their hometown is the city where they live. My countryside—they don’t understand it.

The fact that China’s rural areas are declining or evolving in the midst of transformation is inevitable—this is one point narrated in Country Driving. But this book doesn’t only talk about rural issues; there are also issues of personal development and urban development in China. There are many places worth thinking about, which readers can experience for themselves.