The Joys of Driving in China

Recently, the weather has been perfect in Shenyang. You've read my post on the back-and-forth nature of the weather here, so it's been a pleasure to enjoy some fresh air, clear blue skies, and mild temperatures. The other night on my way home from work, I rolled down the window and said, "Goodness! It's a great night for a drive!" So I drove around the corner to a nearby park and parked the car next to the lake to enjoy some tunes. Why didn't I actually drive around town, enjoying the nice air? Well, because driving in China is anything but relaxing.

A group of us with the Panda on the way to Dandong

Earlier this summer, I got my Chinese driver's license and agreed to share a vehicle with a colleague at the Consulate. He purchased a hand-me-down vehicle from a former Consulate employee, a cute 5-speed mini car affectionately known as the Panda. Actually, it's a imitation of the Fiat Panda, made by Geely, a Chinese car manufacturer. But to be honest, it actually does look like a panda because it's white with black accents.

I truly enjoy driving, especially a manual transmission vehicle. This winter, I look forward to going back to the US to drive my pickup around the rolling hills of Bucks County. In the meantime, I'll roll my windows down as I drive down Nanjing Jie and imagine I'm driving along the Delaware River instead of across the Hunhe. In China, the thrill of driving is less relaxing, but certainly exciting in a different kind of way. Mainly because you never know what to expect.

To start, let's talk about driving etiquette on the roads. There is none. Since many Chinese drivers are only recently licensed, they've logged very few hours behind the wheel. There is no mandatory driver's education and no road test to be licensed. From what I've heard about the written test, the questions are also kinda bogus and unrelated to the real conditions of driving. Another point to keep in mind: in Chinese traffic law, it's the vehicle that impacts the other car that is at fault. So it makes (some) sense when Chinese drivers merge into traffic and they don't look behind them to yield to other drivers. No looking---at all. Even if they were hit, the accident wouldn't be their fault.

When I drive on the roads here, what keeps me sane is 1) knowing that I'm probably more experienced than the majority of drivers on the road and 2) imagining I'm playing a car driving video game. The video game isn't one of those that you race for the best time around a track; it's one of those that you have to swerve and manoeuvre around obstacles and pedestrians that come out of nowhere. Because people do just walk out into the street out of nowhere. The other day a woman walked into the street on a red light (at least she was in a crosswalk) on her cell phone and texting. Six! lanes of traffic stopped for her. Incredible.

At least downtown, the roads are easily navigable with street signs and traffic lights. Shenyang has seen a good deal of construction as of late due to the summer Olympic Games in Liaoning. But the city has done its part to pave and beautify the streets throughout town. The connections to the highways exiting the city are a different story. Our trip to Wazigou back in April was delayed by 2 hours trying to find an on-ramp to the highway that is listed on the maps as being open. Unfortunately for us, the highway wasn't open at all, and so it took a massive detour to get us out of the city. Fortunately for us, we were among the best of friends and it was a grand adventure. Once you make it to the highway (if you ever get there), the high-speed roads are fantastic. Well built and empty, there is relatively no traffic on the highways connecting the major cities. Chinese don't really use the highways as a mode of transportation between major cities because trains and planes are cheaper than owning a car. This might change in the future, but for now it's relatively relaxing to drive on the highways in China (that relative is to the frustration of driving in the city).

I write this entry as I start to plan a weekend journey via Panda to Changbaishan. With just about 6 hours of driving on roads that aren't yet on maps, I hope to have another entry that continues the theme. Wish me luck!

Reading the Signs

When I started studying Chinese in college, I found the written language supremely fascinating. With no alphabet building blocks and no instructions on how to pronounce a word if you didn't already know it, written Chinese can be quite intimidating. Most characters have multiple components that should be written in a specific order, top to bottom, left to right, outside to inside. The components might give you a clue about what that word meant, but it could be as vague as "three dots water" to indicate a word has something to do with liquid (i.e. 海 means sea). Combine two generic characters that mean something on their own to make a completely different word (i.e. 口水 or "mouth + water" means saliva, or 水手 "water + hand" means sailor).

As I continued learning the language, I focused hard core on learning as many characters as I could, meticulously focusing on writing them, filling notebooks with hundreds of characters. My professor warned me early on that I was on the track to becoming mute: someone who could read and write but not speak. He was right. I was less interested in speaking; I had difficulty hearing the tones and translating to respond quick enough. Granted, our language lab classes were based on rote repetitions and memorizing silly dialogues. I could write an essay no problem, but ask me to come up with the essay on the fly and I was lost. Grammar was easy enough (there basically isn't much) but the memorization of the pronunciation got me cold. pinyin is based on 21 possible starting letters, and 39 possible endings, making some 411 possible pronunciations of words in the entire language. Add to that the four tones, with some words having the same exact tone and pronunciation, and you've just gotta know by context which one is right. The possibilities become almost endless, in my opinion.

Needless to say, I have the utmost respect for people who have a grasp of the spoken Chinese language. It is no easy feat to become fluent. I spent 4 years studying in college, and one summer semester in Beijing, but it is merely a drop in the bucket on the path to becoming fluent. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, I hadn't studied Chinese in 2 years, and the amount of mental bulimia was huge. My character knowledge had gone out the window and goodness my tones were as awful as they ever were. But, within a few months on board, I was on a plane back to China to live and work in a city that had little to no English. Brushing off those textbooks and starting to get back into the study mode, I was prepared to a bite of humble pie while my language got back to a point where I could communicate and get around.

Thankfully, my knowledge of Chinese characters helped me greatly in feeling comfortable getting around town. I could read general ingredients in menus, I could recognize street signs, I could feel comfortable shopping. I took this picture at an common intersection in downtown:

There's no English here. But I know what all the signs say for the most part, there's a grocery store, a motel, a hospital that specializes in... ahem... colonoscopies, etc. I can read the street signs, and generally have an easy time figuring things out if I don't know how to say them. I'm okay with instructing directions, ordering food, daily basic conversation. My listening comprehension has gotten worlds better since moving here full time. But ask me to talk about migrant worker issues or nuclear non-proliferation and you're not getting a word from me.

On a different note, one of the things I notice immediately when I fly back home to the US is that I can read, hear, speak almost anything, and comprehend completely. It's a great feeling to not have to worry about misunderstanding something. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to that.

To get a head start on my next language, and to be more prepared for full immersion than I was when I came to China, I started self-studying Italian. Getting back onto the grammar bus has been challenging, but also fun (notecards, check!). I enjoy being a student (actually, I absolutely love school) so I'm also looking forward to going back to FSI and starting language training full time. The inner (and possibly outer) nerd in me can't wait to be back in study mode. And who knows? Maybe my brain is better organized for a Western, romance language than an Eastern character-based language. Here's hoping!