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| Digging down into the culture of a nation half a world away -- The people of China yield several su |
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About 40 years ago -- long before video games and TVs with a thousand channels -- a favorite pastime of my friends and mine was digging to China. We'd dig a hole as deeply as we could before boredom set in or our parents called us to supper. We weren't smart like other kids who dug to China. We'd give up on a digging spot too quickly and start a new hole. Other kids, it turns out, continued digging the same hole, so when they gave up on breaking through to the Far East, they at least had a great deep opening for things like a superhero's hideout or a trap for wild jungle animals. When I visited China a couple of weeks ago, I asked people my age if they'd dug to America. I wanted to know if they dug shallow or deep holes. To my disappointment, none had dug to America as children. Furthermore, they had no idea that their U.S. peers had tried reaching them years ago via the center of the earth. They also didn't play Simon Says, a question that occurred to me to ask when I met a Chinese businessman named Simon. After I explained the rules, Simon said he'd very much like playing such a game. Besides no digging to America and no Simon Says, I'm not sure that my Chinese peers had bicycles when they were children either. It appears that the adults have all the bicycles in China, and they're using them for much more important things than racing through neighborhoods or pedaling to the nearest convenience store for junk food. They use them to get to work, haul things and transport people. On the four-lane road I traveled in the Chinese city of Suzhou, the far lanes were for the hundreds of bicycles, motor scooters and motorized bicycles making their way up and down the highway. The bikes are not fancy, expensive ones like adults and children ride in the U.S., and the person maneuvering the vehicle isn't wearing tight shorts, special bicycling shoes and sleek helmets. The Chinese bicyclist is in his work clothes, just pumping his way from one place to the other. His bike is likely the only means of transport in his possession. He hauls things on his bike as we would haul items on the back of a pick-up truck: bales of hay, ladders, sheets of dry wall. He might have a friend sitting side-saddle on the rusty fender, or he may have fashioned and attached a type of trailer for hauling even more stuff. If it's raining, the bicycle driver wears a special poncho. It has an attached duckbill hat, and the front fans forward and out to cover the driver's arms and legs. It's ingenious. I bought a purple one for $2. I'm going to try it out the next time it rains. I observed the bicyclists from the backseat of a Buick being driven by a congenial Chinese man who knew no English but smiled when I smiled and didn't drive quite as heatedly as those with whom he shared the wide road. I've never observed drivers cross and re-cross lanes with such speed and dexterity. I also have never seen vehicles get as close to each other without touching. I don't know if I'd ever develop the skills and courage to get behind the wheel in China, but I do know that sitting in the backseat of a car is a better ride than anything available at Disney World. I felt both thrilled and safe. What looks like chaos is really order -- like white-water rapids. People stop and back up on highways. They make U-turns across four lanes. They honk their horns not in anger but in warning. I never saw or heard an ambulance's siren. I never heard a patrol car's warning, but I did see flashing lights once. A police office had stopped a car for snaking into the bicyclists' lane. It's too bad people around here -- and especially in Charlotte -- can't figure out how to drive like the Chinese people. I don't know what they did instead of digging holes and playing Simon Says, but it certainly made them safer drivers. www.charlotte.com March 22, 2006 |
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