Country Driving [219]
Many of my magazine pieces were illustrated with the distinctive photographs of Mark Leong. I’m especially glad that we shared the Lishui project—in addition to his ability with a camera, Mark is both observant and thoughtful, and he enriched my understanding of that corner of Zhejiang.
Without Helen Chang’s help, I wouldn’t have understood the classical Chinese of the old Sancha land contracts. Rania Ho provided maps of Beijing cloverleaf exchanges. Michael Dunne, managing director of the China office at J. D. Power and Associates, answered countless questions about the Chinese auto industry. Jiang Hong, now at the University of Hawaii, generously suggested people to meet in Wushenqi, Inner Mongolia. Dou Changlu at The Wall Street Journal gave me early driving tips, and Lily Song helped me keep various registrations current. I first became interested in Zhejiang because of former students who had migrated there, and they helped me in different ways: William Jefferson Foster did fact-checking in the province, and Shirley Zhao vouched for me at the Wenzhou Prosperous Automobile Rental Company. Cui Rong at The Wall Street Journal found background material on the factory towns. For fact-checking, I depended heavily on Kersten Zhang—I much appreciate her willingness to work overtime.
Many thanks to Angela Hessler, who in the course of her own empire building—the Rome of Cesare and Adriano—took time off to draw beautiful maps of the People’s Republic. Birgitta gave good advice on covers, and throughout the years I benefited from the support of all the Hesslers and Gundys and Nybecks.
Over the course of three books at HarperCollins, I’ve had one editor, Tim Duggan. As a writer working from far away, it’s helped enormously to have such stability and support. Jane Beirn has been a wonderful publicist, and Allison Lorentzen did a great job coordinating the various (and endless) edits of this book. And I’ll always be grateful to my agent William Clark for reading an unsolicited manuscript back in 1999, and for taking such good care of everything that followed.
IT’S NOT EASY TO leave China after a decade. And it’s especially hard to take a project on the road, which is how it had to happen—two displaced people, each of us with a book researched, driving around southwestern Colorado and looking for a place to write. But we found it and we survived; for whatever it’s worth, two China books took shape atop Log Hill Mesa. It was inspiring to watch Factory Girls come to life, right in the next room; and it was just as inspiring to share these projects in China, discussing what we each learned on various research trips down to the south. For Leslie—with respect for the work, and joy in the writing.
I’m most deeply indebted to the people I wrote about in China. I have no way of thanking the folks I met on the road, the hitchers and the migrants and the generous villagers; but I hope this book captures some of their spirit. I suppose that renting a car in Beijing would have been an adventure regardless, but it wouldn’t have been such a pleasure without Mr. Wang at Capital Motors. In Lishui, I was fortunate to meet Gao Xiaomeng and Wang Aiguo, and I appreciated their openness at the factory. The Tao family was always willing to spend time together, and most of all I’m grateful to Luo Shouyun for his friendship and hard-earned expertise. In Sancha I was blessed to know Wei Ziqi, Cao Chunmei, Wei Jia, and Wei Zonglou. Thank you for sharing your home; thank you for sharing your table; thank you for opening your hearts. Because of your kindness Sancha will always feel like home.
September 2009
Ridgway, Colorado
SOURCES
MOST OF COUNTRY DRIVING WAS RESEARCHED THROUGH personal observation, but in some sections I also relied on published sources and interviews with experts. I have not included footnotes, because most readers find them distracting in a work of narrative non-fiction (and most readers will be happy to ignore this section). But I want to