If Rene Descartes was to appear before me, I’d kick him in the epistemologies, point at China, and say, “Solipsism hey!? What do you think of them apples?”
You can’t make this place up. The human mind is not up to it. If it’s not the numbers, size and variation, it’s the freakin’ driving. I will never get used to it. I’ve spent too long driving in places that have rules. I have acclimatised to being on the wrong side, but that’s because it’s the least of my worries. And really, that whole, “We drive on this side. You going the other way, drive on that side…” is only the vaguest guideline. Sort of like a serving suggestion.
China has properly started its love affair with the car. Fifteen years ago there were almost no privately owned cars. This year, Chinese citizens bought more cars than Americans.
Sure, there are a billion more Chinese than Americans, but that just means the manufacturers have only just scratched the surface of the market. I’d be surprised if we didn’t see that number trumped, again and again.
There will be a couple of factors that will eventually inhibit continual growth in the car market; one of them being the natural limit to how many cars can fit on the roads.
If you arrive in Shanghai from one of the many freeways, you slam to a quick halt in the face of the most amazing traffic. Fifteen hundred new cars hit Shanghai streets every day. If that sounds like a lot, Shanghai’s registered population is nearly 14 million. But that doesn’t really tell the story. That number is boosted by unregistered people and those who live outside the municipality and come in to work. It’s guessed to be over 20 million. Let’s put that into some perspective. That’s the population of Australia in a city you can drive across before lunch.
Yet, in strange contrast, there is no shortage of roads in China. It just depends where you are. They have built roads all over the country in preparation for the traffic increase. It’s possible to be belting along nearly empty expressways between quite large population centres. There are flyovers and cloverleaf exits that would make a Texan proud.
Some other transport facts stand out. Mainly because you almost get killed by them several times a day. The Chinese have gone for electric scooters. I saw one for sale in our local hardware in Australia last year and thought it was interesting enough to prompt a blob. I’ve not seen one since (in Australia) and that's because the Chinese bought them all.
Here, they are a swarming, ubiquitous, inescapable presence. A good proportion of the population in big cities have given up pedalling and scoot around on these funky, totally silent, electric bikes. The state owned Flying Pigeon bike manufacturer has had to consider outsourcing to SE Asia and Africa to cut costs because they used to sell over 4 million bikes a year. Now, it’s down to just over a million. I like the look of them, but they do weigh over twenty kilos (partly because of the reinforced crossbar for carrying pigs) and are not considered fashionable.
There’s also an industry that adds motors and batteries to the hundred-year-old tricycles. These are the things with the tray on the back. All the farmers seem to get around on them (silently) carrying enormous loads that will squash you flat as you step off the curb.
Facts and figures used here have been checked against National Geo, The Age and various 'pedias, to put some substance around the type of conversations you have on a bus - when you're going through a town like Shanghai. Besides, if you're reading AGA for factual accounting of the world...
No comments:
Post a Comment