GUANGDONG DRIVING TALES
By Angela Loan
Guangdong province is the richest in China and was one of the first places open to foreign investment, so it is no surprise that there are factories throughout the province and with that many trucks and cars on the roads between. Although I have only lived here a short time I have visited China on many occasions for both work and pleasure. During my travels from factory to factory I have had some fun experiences and always loved going home to Australia to tell my family, friends and colleagues of my latest escape. Although these days I rarely ‘blink’ when we have a close call, they are still entertaining to tell. So here are a few of my stories - of course these are always better told in person when you can give facial and body expressions so try and imagine as you read.
SMOKY
I cannot remember exactly where we were - somewhere around Yangjiang (also known as ‘Knives Country’ as the majority of factories manufactures steel cooking knives) - I was in a minivan with several colleagues. In the front seat beside the driver was Tony, our HK Quality Control Manager. In the back with me were two lovely Englishmen, Mark and Ian, from our UK subsidiary. It was their first time to Asia, let alone China so I have plenty of stories about this trip!
We were on a newly opened expressway - you know just bitumen, no lines, signs or fences. Our driver was motoring along at just over 120 kilometres per hour, one hand on the wheel and was animatedly talking on his mobile phone with the other. Tony was asleep in the front. I was working feverishly on my laptop, which was placed on my knees. Ian was beside me looking at the countryside and Mark was at the very back of the minivan looking at the road ahead. Nobody was wearing seatbelts.
Mark suddenly gasped, really loud. Ian then looked at the road and went ‘oh my god’, so I looked up to see what the problem was. We could not see the road ahead. It was covered with smoke. “Hmmm”, I said aloud. Our driver was not slowing down but heard our comments. Mark and Ian started panicking. Tony roused and muttered something in Chinese to the driver. He changed lanes to the inside and lifted his foot slightly but did not brake. We started to slow down a little but were approaching fast. Smoke engulfed us whatever it was ahead of us was coming up. The minivan was silent. What seemed like forever were only a few minutes, we saw the source of the smoke. A truck stopped on the outside lane had blown a couple of tires. Our minivan shot past on the inside lane, we were doing about 90 kilometres per hour. Suddenly there was no more smoke, a clear road ahead. Mark and Ian started “breathing” again and I went back to working on my laptop. Tony fell asleep.
BRIDGE NERVES
Last October in a factory in Yangjiang I was waiting for our HK Quality team to finish their inspections. The factory owner, Mr Fong, had offered to drive us to Guangzhou which I happily accepted. I was on my way to see my ‘new home’ at Jinan University where my husband had just accepted a job. After waiting around for an hour or so, we piled into the car with Mr Fong and his driver in the front, a HK colleague and me in the back. As usual the car motion sent all of us to sleep, excluding the driver of course!
I awoke when the car started to slow down a little, there was traffic ahead. Suddenly the driver took to the road’s shoulder, as the traffic had come to almost a stop ahead. This normally wouldn’t worry me too much except that we were on a bridge!!! My colleague and I looked unbelievably at each other – Mr Fong glanced around and just smiled. We continued to drive over the long expressway bridge at 80 kilometres an hour. I looked across to my right at the light rail fence and then down to the water. If there had been an accident ahead or we had clipped a car we would have definitely landed in the river below – and it was a long way down! Of course we made it without a scratch and continued on our merry way towards Guangzhou.
LAST FERRY
In a factory about an hour’s drive from Zhuhai, I was busily selecting new products and discussing ideas with the manager when my HK colleague whispered to me “Angela, hurry up”. I queried why, and was told we could miss the last ferry back to Hong Kong. Within half an hour we were in the factory owner’s new Mercedes with his driver. We had an hour to get to the Zhuhai ferry terminal. A familiar drive, with good expressways so I fell asleep in the car during the drive as did both my HK colleagues, Chris and Harriet.
I woke up when we arrived in Zhuhai, the driver was grumbling about the traffic, it was peak hour and there were cars and trucks everywhere. He had lost significant speed and could now only do 60 kilometres an hour. Swerving in and out of the traffic, he drove through the city. At one stage we drove up a ramp on the side of the road and then back down again so he could get in front of the truck ahead of us. I actually found it entertaining to watch and felt reasonably safe as we were in a Mercedes with all its ‘bells and whistles’. Eventually we made it to the road leading to the terminal, he navigated the curves with expertise and we screeched to a halt at the ferry terminal departure gate. Chris looked over at the gate and could see the ferry had already departed. Animated chattering in Chinese followed and we took off again.
I had no idea where we were going, I asked Harriet who was sitting next to me and she said ‘we try another ferry terminal’. Fifteen minutes later we stopped and bid farewell to the driver. I grabbed my bag and followed my colleagues. We raced across a footbridge and then jumped into a taxi. Though something seemed weird, we were now surrounded by Chinese and what looked like Portuguese road signs and billboards. After exiting the taxi, I continued to look around but kept running to keep up. We arrived at customs for Macau. My first trip to Macau lasted a whole 10 minutes, in through customs and then out the other side as we then boarded the last ferry for Hong Kong. Phew! We all breathed a sign of relief and you guessed it, fell asleep.