Summary of Peter Hessler's Country Driving

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 I had lived in China for five years by 2001, and I had traveled passively by bus, plane, boat, and train. But when I got a Chinese driver’s license, I realized that nothing could be taken for granted.

#2 When I began planning my trip, a Beijing driver recommended The Chinese Automobile Driver’s Book of Maps. The book divided the nation into 158 separate diagrams, and there was even a road map of Taiwan, which is included in any mainland atlas for political reasons.

#3 The book made me want to go west. The charts of the east and south looked busy, but the north and west were still home to vast stretches of agricultural land. The maps of those regions had a sense of space that appealed to me.

#4 The Chinese had considered converting the Great Wall into a highway in the 1920s. In 1931, the Students’ Magazine proposed modernizing the structure, and it was supported by the government.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822513211

IRB Media

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Insights on Peter Hessler's Country Driving

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

I had lived in China for five years by 2001, and I had traveled passively by bus, plane, boat, and train. But when I got a Chinese driver’s license, I realized that nothing could be taken for granted.

#2

When I began planning my trip, a Beijing driver recommended The Chinese Automobile Driver’s Book of Maps. The book divided the nation into 158 separate diagrams, and there was even a road map of Taiwan, which is included in any mainland atlas for political reasons.

#3

The book made me want to go west. The charts of the east and south looked busy, but the north and west were still home to vast stretches of agricultural land. The maps of those regions had a sense of space that appealed to me.

#4

The Chinese had considered converting the Great Wall into a highway in the 1920s. In 1931, the Students’ Magazine proposed modernizing the structure, and it was supported by the government.

#5

In Shanhaiguan, I rented a car and drove west through Hebei Province. The harvest was mid-autumn, and everything except the corn had been cut down. I drove through villages with rugged names: Ox Heart Mountain, Double Peak Village, Mountain Spirit Temple.

#6

In Hebei, everything was a potential resource. People would rip up the Great Wall and use the bricks to build something else. In this part of China, even funerals have a bustling air.

#7

Feng shui, the Chinese practice of landscape design, has been around for thousands of years and is still practiced today. It is connected to business, as good feng shui means good fortune.

#8

The roads in China were completely unpredictable. They were built to deal with poverty or crisis, as it was hard to transport food to starving people in 1920s China.

#9

In 2001, the country had a population of over 1. 2 billion, but there were only ten million passenger vehicles. The ratio was 128 people for every vehicle. The country began to develop a car industry in 1998, and by 2001, there were fewer than ten million passenger vehicles.

#10

In China, I learned that people would return the car empty if they were charged extra to refill it. I decided to charge extra if people didn’t obey the rule, and they would learn to follow it.

#11

China has a long history of skirting regulations. For example, the Jeep I rented was strictly rear-wheel drive, and would be useless in rough terrain. But I decided to ignore this rule since the rental contract specifically forbade drivers from leaving the Beijing region.

#12

I visited villages that had ancient ruins, and asked locals if they knew the history. In Ninglu, a group of elderly people responded immediately. The town wall was built in the 22nd year of the Jiajing emperor, and encased in kiln-fired brick in the first year of the Wanli emperor.

#13

The Chinese have a difficult time defining the Great Wall, as there are hundreds of walls across the north. The most famous dynasty for wall building was the Qin, who built tamped-earth barriers during the reign of emperor Qin Shihuang in 221 BC.

#14

The Chinese have long been confused by the Great Wall, which they believe was built by the Qin Dynasty. In reality, the wall was built by the Han Dynasty.

#15

I drove to the village of Ninglu, which was named after the Chinese word for Pacify the Hu, referring to the nomadic tribes of the north. The village name was derogatory, and it referred to all