A Landmark Car Trip

A week ago I reached a life landmark when I turned 42 years old.  It’s another year, so “landmark” might be considered an exaggeration, but for some reason this 6th multiple of 7 subjectively stands out as a great benchmark – possibly a larger milestone than when I turned 40. The number 42 rattles in my skull as if it contains some special significance.

Perhaps the age shakes me as some abstract marker of age – perhaps 42 makes me feel like I’ve reached the middle-age period of life. And being “middle-aged” isn’t necessarily a celebration in my mind, and for this reason I didn’t necessarily want to celebrate this landmark. It very easily could be a lazy day at home capped off by my wife and I going out for a nice birthday meal. My instinct was to let the day slide by with minimal recognition and use it as a day of relaxation in preparation for the year, or middle years, ahead.

My wife, however, did not approve. To be clear, she didn’t force me to do anything and she made certain I knew that it was my choice, but there were strong suggestions that we go somewhere and do something. We had no commitments for the day, and as I had recently navigated a small obstacle course of paperwork to got my Chinese driver’s license renewed, it made sense that we should make use of this automobiled privilege, so we found a car rental spot that works for foreigners, picked a coastal town on the map, and on my birthday I grabbed my passport for ID purposes, we rented a 2021 Volvo, and we began to drive.

Difficulties quickly began.

We live in Beijing, and China as a country likes to keep track of where people are – while this sort of civilian monitoring can feel intrusive, it also allows a sense of remarkable safety. Any person of any gender can walk down nearly any street at any hour and not be panicked for personal safety, and that really is a remarkable thing – whether this safety is worth sacrificing personal privacy is a debate I will not take up in this article.  Regardless, as we  prepared to leave the Beijing area we came to a police checkpoint that has the goal of keeping track of exactly who is and is not in the city. There was a long line of drivers eager to get on the highway, and we had to wait ten to fifteen minutes to reach the front. As the driver, I had my passport ID ready and Chinese Driver’s license nearby for quick access.  This, however, was inconsequential to the officers as their job was only to look at the primary ID of my passport with residence sticker – I passed inspection and now we could –

-              Wait       -

My passenger’s passport. My wife, Anya, needed to show her information as well. But I’m the one driving, why does she – it doesn’t matter. The rule is that they need the primary ID of everyone leaving the city.

As we left early in the morning, our brains were not fully functioning when departing and my wife had neglected to bring her passport because I was the one driving. It didn’t make sense to us that she would need her ID, but in this case “sense to us” doesn’t matter.  What was important was that these officers had a job, and that job was to look at the identity information of everyone who tried to leave the city. My wife had a cellphone picture of her passport, and that helped, but they also needed the residency card attached to the passport, so it wasn’t good enough. To be clear, these officers were not jerks about it or rude in anyway, but they had rules to follow, and a passport was required for us to pass.

Communication was terrible as the officers spoke no English, I speak almost no Chinese, and my wife does study the language, but is not at a linguistic stage where she can carry on a conversation about immigration paperwork while leaning over her husband and shouting through a car window over the sounds of traffic. Understandably, we were stuck, and the officer told us to pull over so we could sort this out. To make this possible the officers stopped the six lanes of traffic in order for me to travel from a left lane, across the highway, and stop in what I assumed was a parking late on the far-right side of the checkpoint.

I parked, let Anya out to deal with the officers, and mentally resigned myself to the thought of being required to return to Beijing. Maybe fate had intervened to allow me to pass nonchalantly into middle age with a quiet dinner and a movie.  It felt like a failed day, but I resigned myself to understanding that it was okay to fail sometimes now that I had reached my middle age.

I noticed Anya gesturing for me to come closer. Do I leave the car – traffic speeds by – no, not walking…so I put the car in reverse and begin to navigate backwards in what I had taken to be a parking lane. I glance up and my rearview mirror reveals a big rig truck barreling toward the posterior of my car – the boom of the horn wails as I slam the car into drive and pulled forward. The truck passes, I shift to reverse – no, another truck.  Then three more and –

The officer, surely exhausted with us, again stops all traffic to guide me to a hidden parking lot, apparently I had been expected to stop there, but it was hidden – so I take no blame for this one. Now parked, I was about to get out of the car, but the officers took Anya into a small trailer, leaving me to wait in the car and guess what was next. In just three minutes she popped out of the trailer.

“Everything good?”

“Yeah, they just scanned my face and that pulled up every document I ever used in this country. I mean every document – passports, contracts, the invitation letter from our first job ten years ago – everything. All scanned and on the computer, like nothing.”

“Well, you’ve just added another paper to the file.”

“Yeah. Not forgetting my passport again – but let’s go.”

We made the decision to leave cares behind us as we were going to some place new, the coastal city of Dapuhezhen –a random costal city I pointed to on the map.

Once outside of Beijing, it’s light traffic with mountain scenery all around, and roads, and more mountains, and more roads, and…it is beautiful, almost meditational as there is no change. Same mountains, roads, a long time.

To state the obvious, China is a big country. Looking at a cellphone map and seeing that your destination is just a few towns over does nothing to convey the distance between those few towns. We begin to pass signs that mark alternative sightseeing locations, we could go – no – I had chosen the spot of Dapuhezhen and damn if my wife and I aren’t stubborn people. According to the maps app we would make it there today, so that’s where we would go. What’s more, as we progressed Anya looked closer at the map and saw that “The Gold Coast” was a site near the city and she recalled visiting when she was eleven and her mother brought her on a business trip. As an eleven-year-old child she had never seen such swarming crowds, and she didn’t remember details, but the mush of memories were flavored with the sweet joy of nostalgia, and this provided more unexpected extra motivation for this trip – there was no way to change the plans now.

Hours passed as kilometers sped by until finally the cellphone maps app spoke –

“In 5 kilometers, keep right at exit 17a.”

The late afternoon sun was beginning its decent but we were getting closer to the beach where we would celebrate my birthday. We pulled off the road, only to glance at the map and realize we still had a more than a hour left to drive.

Sigh.

Another police check point. 

Sigh.

Another 15 to 20 minutes at the booth trying to explain that we were just sightseeing at the beach. Why were we sightseeing at this spot? Well, why not?

Not the best answer, but with negotiations by way translator apps on the phone, and another face scan of Anya, we were allowed to continue, though only after swearing that we would not stay at a hotel, we had to return to Beijing tonight, as Anya didn’t have her passport. Come hell or high water, any potential driving exhaustion be damned, we had to return tonight – and that is why China is such a safe country.

But now it was Anya’s nostalgia leading us down the road and turn right, right again, take a left onto a smaller route weaving through swampland, farm fields, a small house with a roadside stand selling Dragon-Fruit, we’re stuck behind a bicycler who’s talking weather with the Dragon-Fruit Lady – she gives a bit of a glare as we roll around her and pass with a wave.  Now the scenery was getting intriguing as we are clearly driving on some deeply country roads  and I began to have images of a Chinese hillbillies picking out the banjo theme from Deliverance.

“Babe, should we maybe just go back?”

“No, we’re almost there. Take this left.”

The road became smaller, and through the trees we could make out ships not too far away, we just had to find a place to park. Take a right, leaves and branches tickle our car as the road becomes a corridor of bushes, and just through the bushes is a yard of dry-docked boats, looking like a graveyard for ghost pirates.

“Let’s stop, take some pictures.”

“Where?

There is no edge to this road, no curves, no grass, just a ditch followed by bushes and the only place we could park would be stopping in the center of this road. I’m not doing that with a rental. The app says there’s some park ahead – or at least a place marked as green – nature? – sights to see? – a place to stop? –a fence with the gate half-open and a large, red sign. We translate – No Entrance.

A small, empty lot on our left where we stop to figure our next move. Do we go back? Back to where? Beijing? I’m hungry.

A truck drives past us through the No Entrance gate. This truck drove with such confidence  that it becomes an inspiration and we follow onto a road that devolves from loosely paved, to dirt, to series of bumps, to puddles – but our map app says it really is a road. The truck ahead, stopped, half off the road, two men are fixing wires but what the wires are for doesn’t matter because they see us, shake their heads “no”, and make an ‘X’ in front of their chests.

With gestures and spulttered Chinese, we communicate that we need to turn around, and just ahead is a field where we can turn, return, and wave farewell as they watch our retreat with clearly confused looks.

Giving up on the app, we guess at a few squiggling turns that take us to a wet dock filled with fishing boats and the fishermen ignoring our car that is moving at a sightseer's pace as we look for a parking spot.  Finally, a hotel lot where we pull in – not a large hotel but decorated with the run-down feeling of a hotel for people who don’t want to sleep on the boat tonight. Rooms that are clean enough and have hot water – not a draw for tourists, but we walk around and attempt to take in the sights of industrial fishing. The labor economy scampers about us and Anya admits this isn’t what it felt like the first time she came – there are no restaurants, no tourists, and no activity other dark fishing boats coming in and unloading in the setting sun.

“It was a long time ago – the name’s correct, but maybe it was run down with tourism stopping.  Still, seems like there should be more.”

“Yeah, but either way, I am hungry.”

“There was a restaurant at the entrance to the port. Let’s go.”

“Think they’ll have fish?”

“Funny.”

With a melancholy tone in the air we returned to the car and start toward the restaurant, an open seating shack – the sort of place where it is best if you know ahead of time what’s safest to order.  It’s possible that the restaurant has amazing sea food cooked to simple perfection – a secret cullinary treasure of China, but I at that moment was that I didn’t want to be surprised by indigestion and a runny rear for the long drive home.  I drove past.

“Aren’t we going to stop? That was the place.”

“Nah, it’s my birthday, we’re going to see what else we find. There’s got to be something ahead.”

We drove along empty roads clearly intended for the crowds of people that had decided not to come any more – a graveyard of infrastructure for a previously booming tourist industry.

Suddenly Anya, “Turn here! I think I see foreigners down this road.”

I turned onto a road that looked like it was heading into a forest, but sure enough we soon passed a series of twelve people who did not look Asian.

“I think they’re Russian,” if you hadn’t known from previous writings, my wife is also Russian and she can recognize her people. “I told you tourists come here.”

We continued down the road, continuing to see small groups of foreigners dotting the road  like breadcrumbs on a path that leads to an area properly developed for beach tourism, and jammed with tourists. The sun was setting now, our bellies were crying for dinner, and, this street had several restaurants that seemed safe. We ended up choosing a seafood buffet where you cook your food in the steamer at the table – nothing too fancy, but a nice birthday meal, and the fact that we had traveled to it gave made it feel even more special.  We took our time, enjoying the meal at a leisurely pace, talking about getting older, reminiscing on past journeys together, commenting on our current wonderings, and finishing with the sun disappeared behind the Western horizon and the moon now resting in the sky.

It would be nice to end the story here, to bring the evening to a close where Anya and I get a hotel and celebrate my birthday with a moonlit walk along the beach, but remember that we had to get home, the police did know where we were and that Anya – insert ominous music cue - didn’t have her passport!  We could walk anywhere in this community without worry about harm, as long as we didn’t think about staying overnight. The six hour drive to get here was only half way as we had to go home tonight.

With that in mind, we finished our freshly cooked shellfish and returned to the car for the long drive back, though admittedly with pleasantly pump bellies.

Relying on the maps app again, we were on generally un-lit roads, but according to our location as digitally represented on the app, we were moving toward the highway, until a one-lane road in front of a car with headlights stuck on high beam and the phone spouted, “Take a left turn now.” At this same moment, from the opposite direction a line of three cars came came over a hill and toward us, so lights on low beam were directly in my eyes.  Lights behind, lights before, a horn –

“This is the turn!”

“Which one, there are three turns.”

Blare of the horn behind us.

“I don’t-…”

“The maps says this one.”

“Which one?”

Horn blare.

“This one, I’m going.”

The three approaching cars pass, I yank the wheel left onto the road I think will take us to the tollroad, the high beam blaring horn buzzes past us from behind –

The car slows as I tap the breaks to look around. This road is darker from the one we just left. The app spouts “Continue for 500 meters to the ticket booths.”  There are no ticket booths ahead.  The road turns to dirt and we can see the elevated road with ticketing booth lights to our right with the ten-lane highway just beyond, but we have no way to get there.

The road we have chosen, however, is only getting smaller and I’m afraid if we continue the road will simply disappear.  As there is no easy place to turn, but also no traffic its time for a three-point turn on this narrow path, that becomes a 5-point, a 7-point turn that we carefully crept through so that the brush on the either side doesn’t scratch this rented metal beast and by the 9th point we have finally turned around and are going toward the slightly less dark road from whence we came. 

We could see the street elevated above us and going over our road by a bridge that led toward the ticketing booths, but there was no way to get back onto the main road from whence we came. Scanning the darkness – nothing – we went into reverse still scanning – nothing. I have no idea how we turned onto this farm equipment path, but the road is simply gone and we had to go under the bridge to the ticket booths while listening to the map app complain, “Rerouting.” 

The new road continues through small housing patches with the only light coming from an occasional porch decorated by a group of elderly folks sitting round, sometimes eating, sometimes playing cards. I use the term “folks” here because while these were clearly Chinese country folks, and even though I didn’t see banjos the tones of Deliverance began to twang through my mind again.

And it was with this sort of trepidation that we crept down the dark, curving roads of the Chinese countryside, eyes set on the side of the road straining to see any unexpected people crossing, animals darting, or wondering zombies as any of these risks could have easily stepped out and planted themselves into the hood of my car. This is a route that I imagine would have been beautiful and interesting in the light of day, but by night – not so much.

Fortunately, the map app decided to take us on the correct path, and a lack of traffic meant we could be certain before taking our turns.  Small paths led to a larger road, and then a road with lights, and finally to a station of ticketing booths that was nowhere near our intended entrance, but they still sent us in the correct direction. Police check point with the same nonsense as before - passport documented, Anya’s face scanned – and we were on straightaway for the next 279 kilometers.

It was an easy drive, and little less than four hours later traveling at a decent pace and pausing at rest-stops twice, it was just before midnight when we were pulling into the police check point to Beijing.  By now I was used to the security check routine and we were able to park, get our documents taken care of with minimal hassle, and pull onto the final stretch of roads through the city no the way to our home.

A few drops of rain trickled onto the windshield.

“Good thing we’re almost home.  Looks like we’ll just beat the storm.”

Spoken too soon, for the few drops quickly turned into a waterfall, waves of water, blurring vision. Navigating by way of occasional flashing lights or shapes, visibility of less than five meters from the car – this was the type of rain generally reserved for disaster films. Had the storm happened 30 minutes earlier on the tollroad I would have pulled off at the nearest rest stop to wait it out, and if 30 minutes later, we would have been home – as it was, the timing was perfect for mayhem. Emergency blinkers as we slid along the city highway, hands clutching the steering wheel, flashing lights from other cars, thankfully most were driving with similar caution, all the lights blinking like the eyes of fish in a dark ocean. But there are always some who refuse pay attention to common sense courtesy, and in a moment a truck barreled into the exit lane to on right, a cascade of water swept us with enough force to shove the car one full lane to our right –the space was still empty, but barely, as another car hit the horn and flashed lights as we were pushed in front of it – centimeters to spare.

Breath. Keep cool. Cars still moving. Everyone okay. By centimeters.

Continuing a slow, deliberate pace, creeping – what should have been the final 20 minutes elongated to 90 minutes as we moved along at the pace of caution – the centimeters that had kept us accident-free flashing in my mind. Waves of water were relentless as we continued down the highway, lights flashing, the deafening pounding on the roof of our car.

As is too often the fact, the rain began to letup as we pulled off busy road and traveled the last two kilometers – now on vacant streets – taking us home. At our apartment complex, the security guard considered the time, the weather, and was gracious enough to let us into the parking lot for one night despite not having the required parking pass – it was Saturday night, or now Sunday morning, and some people had surely left for the weekend.  We parked, let out a grateful breath, and went to the apartment for some birthday cake that was waiting in the refrigerator.

The morning came and we returned the rental on time without a scratch.

And I was another day older.

I share this story for two reasons –

First because it is an example of storytelling – of taking what could be forgotten as normal and by using emphasis marking in as something special. 

At the first storytelling workshop I led – it was at a middle school in State College, PA – I was trying to explain what storytelling is, and one student understood, “Oh, I get it.  Like, anyone might go and get a cup of coffee, but a storyteller can – GO and get a CUP of COOOFFFEEE!”

It is the privilege of the storyteller to recognize the magnificence embedded in what could be dismissed as mundane, and that is what I’m trying to do with this story. It could have been – We rented a car, went on a long drive, had a decent meal and drove through a storm to get home late – a quick summary sentence that passes and ignores all the interesting parts.  If I used a simple summary, my 42nd birthday would not be a day I remember.

Which takes me to the second reason – it was my 42nd birthday, a number I grant importance to for some unknown reason – but I was ready to let it slip by. Fortunately, my wife encouraged me to make it a day where something happens. If I had followed my initial intention it certainly would have been an easier day, but with my wife’s encouragement, it became a truly marked event – and I made a choice to not let age merely pass me by.  To be suer, it was a bit of a comic catastrophe, but it happened, and I will never forget these events – police checkpoints, a ghostly dry dock, the disappearing turn, imagined banjos, storm waves…

I did something for my 42nd birthday, and I have the story to prove it.