Country Driving [149]
I had never been any place in the country where driving was so dangerous. Part of the problem was infrastructure, which often had a slapdash quality. Wenzhou never benefited from the kind of central planning that shaped other key cities like Shenzhen and Shanghai, and here in Zhejiang the local governments usually had to figure out things on their own. Roads were undersized and in poor repair; traffic control was a disaster. And the Wenzhou business instinct made things worse, because people were in a rush and they liked to take risks.
There was nothing more terrifying than a drive through the city’s coastal suburbs. Fifteen years ago, this region was all farmland, but it boomed so fast that old village boundaries disappeared. Now you judged transitions by advertisements on the side of the road, which featured local products. Once, I toured this region, heading south past the airport. First I cruised through a neighborhood where virtually every billboard displayed hinges, and then I began to see signs for electric plugs and adaptors. Soon they were replaced by plastic light switches; next came fluorescent bulbs. Everywhere I passed warehouses and factory buildings, but the road itself remained of rural dimensions: two lanes, no shoulder, badly pitted. Periodically a minor accident caused a traffic jam, and drivers leaned on their horns while staring at advertisements for hinges or light switches. In a place called Longwan I reached faucets—this area was home to nearly seven hundred factories that made water spouts. Automobile axles were next, then metal punch presses.
At last I came to the district of Rui’an, which according to the local government was home to exactly 1,208 manufacturers of automobile engine accessories, brakes, and steering systems. I passed pieces of vehicles in all the roadside shops: dozens of wheels in one window, rows of brake pads in the next, and then a block of stores that featured nothing but car ignitions. In the middle of town I came upon a fatal accident that had occurred just moments earlier. A young woman had been driving a scooter, and she must have been moving at a high rate of speed when she struck a car. The larger vehicle was badly dented and the scooter was smashed beyond recognition. Traffic had slowed to a crawl, and I had no choice but to drive directly past the accident site. A crowd had already gathered, pointing and chattering excitedly; nobody had bothered to cover the body. The woman hadn’t worn a helmet and she had struck the ground headfirst: legs bent backward, arms splayed out, face pressed flat down. When I drove past, before I could look away, I caught an image of her brains poured onto the pavement. It was late afternoon and the light was sharp; blood pooled bright around tangled hair.
A block further, the pedestrian crowd thinned out and traffic returned to normal. Motor scooters zipped along; cars jockeyed for position; horns sang out in the streets. Billboards advertised more pieces of automobiles: hubcaps, pedals, spark plugs. Wipers and windshields, seats and steering wheels. Tires, tires, tires. My hands were still shaking when I pulled over for the evening at Rui’an’s International Hotel. The parking lot was packed with rows of black cars: Audis and Buicks and Volkswagens. Buyers and sellers, businessmen and cadres—and out on the bustling evening streets, where the neon shop signs came to life, nobody would have guessed that there was one less driver in the city.
WHEN I RETURNED TO the Lishui factory in January of 2006, the bosses were testing the machinery. It had been only three months since my last visit, but during that time the place had been transformed. The contractor’s work was finished; the dividing walls had been erected and