Country Driving [213]
Finally Ren Jing’s older sister arrived to ferry messages back and forth across Suisong Road. “She says you better be careful,” she told Ren Jing, and the sixteen-year-old responded: “Tell her I’ll be fine.” Five minutes later, the sister returned: “She’s crying; she really wants you to stay!” But Ren Jing held firm: “I’ll call her when we get there tonight.” It took a long time for the workers to load the third truck, and then Ren Jing climbed into the cab. At the end, after the mother’s entreaties had been exhausted, she sent two hundred yuan across the street. She was still standing there, tears streaming down her cheeks, when the truck disappeared with her daughter.
Nobody cried at the Tao sisters’ departure. Each girl packed a small suitcase, and they chattered excitedly as they made their way to the old factory, like American kids going off to college. Mr. Tao accompanied them to the gate but didn’t linger. No hugs, no kisses—he was soldier-like until the end. Traditional farewells didn’t matter to him; he had more important business to attend to. The last thing he said was, “You need to dress warmly. It’s going to get cold, and you’ll get sick if you’re not careful. If you’re sick, you’ll have to spend money on medicine. So dress warmly, OK? Good-bye.”
With that, he spun on his heel and marched off. At ten o’clock the last truck finally left the old factory. They drove to the new location, where everybody worked well past midnight, making sure that the equipment was unloaded and stacked safely indoors. They had moved it all—the Machine and the metal punch presses, the lightbulbs and the ten-dollar doors, the underwire and the million bra rings—in the span of a single day. Almost immediately after they finished the sky opened up and it rained like there was no tomorrow.
IV
MY CHINESE DRIVER’S LICENSE EXPIRED IN THE SUMMER of 2007. By then, I had moved back to the United States, where I became accustomed to new road routines. In traffic I learned to drive slower, and the right shoulder no longer presented an option for passing. I kept my hand away from the horn. At intersections, when a light turned green, I had to suppress an instinct to immediately cut left across oncoming traffic, the way you do in China. I no longer worried about three-wheeled tractors, or long-distance buses, or black Audi A6s. I took my car to a garage where the mechanics don’t smoke. Once, in Denver, a woman dented my back bumper, and we exchanged phone numbers instead of cash. Twice I was pulled over by the Colorado cops. Both times they let me off with warnings, telling me to drive a little slower and enjoy my day.
Near the end of the year I visited China. A friend told me there’s a grace period for license expirations, so I went to Beijing’s Public Safety Traffic Bureau and filled out all the forms. It couldn’t have been easier; they gave me a new document that’s valid until the year 2013. I caught a flight to Wenzhou, picked up a Volkswagen Santana, and turned the key in the ignition: red light. By then, I knew every gas station within a five-mile radius of the Prosperous Automobile Rental Company, so I drove to the nearest Sinopec. While I was filling up, two policemen pushed a patrol car into the station. The engine was off; they had it in neutral gear. I asked if the vehicle had broken down.
“No, it’s fine,” one of the cops said cheerfully. “We just ran out of gas!”
It felt good to be back. I headed north on the Jinliwen Expressway, cruising past the one-product towns: the jungle gyms of Xiaxie, the buttons of Qiaotou. In Lishui I spent a couple days driving around the development zone. The government had recently initiated a local project