Is That Fat Foreigner Rich? by Graeme Allen

Author:Graeme Allen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kazoo Independent Publishing Services

CHAPTER 17

The Car

In the early days, we would normally use the buses and the metro instead of using taxis. Foreigners are now using the metro, which is the easiest way to get around the city, but in my first twelve years in China, I never saw a foreigner on a bus. The buses are actually quite good, but get a bit overcrowded and, whenever I am on a bus, I get some curious looks from the other passengers, and the driver usually drives like British race car driver Jensen Button, I think because they feel I must be in a hurry. Anyway, another rich cultural experience!

Just after I left Royal Garden my mother-in-law insisted on buying us a car. Just after we got married, Lee had given her 50,000 RMB (about €6,000) to help her buy a new apartment in her hometown of Nantong. She was working in a local state-owned factory that produced the cloth for which Nantong is famous. She was earning around 500 RMB (€60) a month, so with her annual bonus this worked out to about €150 per month. Soon after that, she lost her job – or was retired – I’ve never really found out which. So after about three days sitting at home licking her wounds, she decided to go back to work doing what she had been doing for the state-owned company, but now working for herself. After about three years, she rang Lee and said, ‘I want to buy that foreigner a BMW.’

Naturally Lee was stunned, and said, ‘That’s ridiculous! [or whatever the Chinese equivalent of ‘ridiculous’ is] Do you know what a BMW costs?’

‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘about 500,000 RMB (€63,000).’

‘Can you afford that?’ Lee asked, a bit stunned.

‘Of course,’ she replied.

So Lee asked me if I’d like a BMW, which at the time we couldn’t have afforded to insure, never mind put petrol in, so we politely declined.

So obviously the cloth business was booming. A truly remarkable woman, my mother-in-law … just like her daughter. But this time she wouldn’t take no for an answer, so we settled for something more modest – a Great Wall SUV, which I really enjoyed driving after I obtained a licence. Getting a licence was another rich cultural experience. When I arrived at the driving test centre, I was photographed and then had to do a series of rather quaint tests meant to measure my sight, my hearing, my reaction time and my strength. I then had to get down on my haunches and rise up again without falling over. Finally, I was given a hundred questions with the correct answers, after which I had to sit at a computer without the answers and answer twenty of the questions with multiple choices. I had to get sixteen questions right to pass, and as some of the questions were a bit odd to my Western mind, I really had to have studied them. At the next set of computers there were two Chinese gentlemen also doing

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