Lifestyle – China vs. North America (III)

From bicycles to cars

If you say US and Canada are countries running on wheels, China deserves the same title, except many ride on two wheels. China has been the largest bicycle manufacturing and consuming country for a few decades. However, things are changing fast. Quoting Reuters, “China's auto market, which overtook the United States as the world's largest earlier this year thanks to a raft of policy incentives, has been a major bright spot amid a global industry downturn”. Read on at http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60722O20100108 for details.

In China's large cities, parking is another big headache. The existing transportation system and buildings were not designed to meet such a tide of growth in the personal vehicle market. Pedestrian walk naturally became the makeshift public parking lot (in most cases, not free, though). In some narrow streets, you have to be really good at parking to get the spots. Plus, you'd better watch for the bicyclists all the time, as the two-wheelers still outnumber the four-wheelers in big figure.

Today, in large cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, traffic has become one of the biggest headache to the city managers. Taking Beijing as an example, the city added over 100,000 passenger cars in the peak month of 2009. Yes, the number is not mistaken – over 100,000 new cars sold in a month! The city has built numerous new roads, including the well known 4^th ring and 5^th ring semi-highway, as Beijing quickly expands its territory (the 6^th ring is under construction). Yet, the traffic is still pretty bad during rush hours. Last September, it took me over one hour traveling from North-East 3^rd ring to the China World Trade Center, a distance just about 10km, for a dinner appointment.

Cars have become a new culture in China merging into the 5,000 years old legacy. All sorts of vehicle clubs and businesses are born every day, some out of the imagination of westerners. Since the four-wheelers were not part of Chinese everyday life until just a few years ago, Chinese had to creatively come up with many ways of parking cars in narrow streets, mostly on pedestrian walks. For many rich Chinese, luxury cars and sports cars have become their status marker despite the fact that such cars are minimum twice more expensive in China than in western countries, thanks to China’s protective tariff on automobiles.

Recently, in a high profile wedding in an affluent town in Jiangsu Province (one of China’s most developed provinces) triggered a heated discussion over Internet. Over 30 high-end cars showed up in the “wedding fleet”, including 4 Rolls-Royce Phantom, 4 Bentley, 1 Ferrari, 1 Lamborghini, 20 Audi A8-W12 Quattro, 2 Audi S8, plus a few Land Rovers and Hummers as “guards” (see http://www.naol.ca/news/world/1001/0126-2.html for pictures). And among the wedding gift, there’s a brand new white Lamborghini. Yet, the family members, when interviewed, said it’s just a normal wedding, definitely not the top line in town. Go figure…

To become part of the “modern life” westerners have enjoyed for decades, more Chinese will drive cars instead of bikes to commute. The American Dream is being tweaked to form its Chinese version in the one of the world’s oldest civilizations. Regardless, the four wheelers have significantly changed not just the “living diameter” but lifestyle of many Chinese.

To be continued.