Country Driving: A Journey Through China From Farm to Factory by Peter Hessler

Author:Peter Hessler
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Transportation, Customs & Traditions, Social Science, Automotive, Travel, Essays & Travelogues, Asia, General, China, China - Description and travel, Automotive - China, History
ISBN: 9780061804090
Publisher: Harper
Published: 2009-12-23T02:34:08+00:00

III

WEI ZIQI’S BUSINESS LED HIM TO JOIN THE PARTY, AND the Party in turn led him to more business. Cadres from out of town occasionally came to the restaurant, especially if they had reason to go somewhere off the beaten track. For a while, a group of corrupt officials from Shunyi visited regularly in order to play high-stakes mah-jongg. Sancha was remote enough for them to gamble without drawing attention, and they knew that Wei Ziqi was politically reliable. Sometimes Wei Jia was enlisted to serve beer to guests, and for a while I wondered if he’d grow up like an errand-boy in a mafia movie: overhearing conversations, learning the ropes, plotting his own rise to Party Secretary. But the high-stakes mah-jongg games suddenly ended, probably because of some crackdown on corruption, and the Shunyi cadres stopped coming out.

In 2005, the government launched a development campaign to “Build New Countryside.” China’s national leadership had changed hands—in 2002, Hu Jintao became General Secretary of the Party, replacing Jiang Zemin. Jiang had always been known for favoring the cities, but Hu began to put more emphasis on rural development. Every morning in Sancha, the propaganda speakers blared reports about initiatives and campaigns, and then funds started to trickle into town. That year, the local county used some of the money to support rural businesses that catered to the new car tourists. Wei Ziqi found a way to profit from this campaign; he applied for and received a cash grant to remodel his kitchen. It was another perk of Party membership—he often figured out how to capitalize on government programs.

For the remodeling, he hired a crew of three villagers. In Sancha, anybody who hires laborers also serves them dinner, and one evening I joined the remodeling crew. A worker asked if there was anything I don’t eat.

“He doesn’t eat eggs,” Wei Ziqi said, before I could respond. “He won’t eat intestines or any other organs. He doesn’t like meat on the bone. He doesn’t like bean paste. He likes fish and he likes vegetables.”

Villagers spend a great deal of time talking about food, and over the years the family had studied every quirk in my diet. Tonight the men discussed the evening’s dishes, and then the conversation shifted abruptly to international events.

“Look how small Japan is,” one man said. “How many Beijings would fit inside Japan?”

I told him that I had no idea.

“Well, I’m sure it’s not very many,” he said. “Japan is such a small country, but they controlled a lot of China during the war. Look how small it is compared to Manchuria!”

“The Japanese are originally Chinese,” another man said. He was the tallest in the group, and he spoke forcefully, stabbing the air with his chopsticks as if carving out space in the conversation. “Qin Shihuang sent soldiers across the ocean,” he continued. “He was searching for ways to live longer. That’s how they discovered Japan—they didn’t come back and they settled the place. So you can say that the Japanese are originally Chinese.

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