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This is a draft of the preface to be published in the book The China Road Motorcycle Diaries.
The China Road Motorcycle Diaries
Preface
The China Road Motorcycle Diaries
1
Carla King
PREFACE
In the summer of 1997 I received an email from an Americanworking in Beijing. It arrived like a fortune in my computer. “There's abike waiting for you in a garage in China,” it said. “You could ride it allover the country.”Bikers are a closely-knit group, especially sidecarists, and after my1995 motorcycle adventure around the United States on a Russian Uralsidecar motorcycle I'd had invitations to motorcycle in Europe andAustralia, Russia and Tiera del Fuego. But in 1997, China was suddenlyeverywhere in the news: the restoration of Hong Kong to the Chinese,the opening of the country to tourism and foreign investment—boldcapitalist moves in a tightly controlled society. The country wasinteresting and unknown. At least, I knew nothing about it.A certain memory of childhood came to me. Myrtle Beach in NorthCarolina, digging in the sand, some adult asked me, "What are youdoing, digging all the way to China?" And of course I imagined kids likeme over there on the other side of the world, but upside-down, witheyes slanted upward because they were fighting gravity from the otherdirection. The invitation appeared in my email again. "You could ride aroundthe countryside and talk with people about Hong Kong," it said. "ButHong Kong isn't all that's going on here. It's overshadowed much moredramatic changes, out in the countryside."I love the countryside. By October, I was there as a guest of RickDunagan and the Beijing Chang Jiang gang, an eclectic group of expatriate Americans and Europeans, and one Chinese couple who
The China Road Motorcycle Diaries
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Carla King
owned an adventure travel shop in Beijing. The bike belonged to Jim Bryant, the owner of the Subwaysandwich franchise. The bike was black, just like my Ural, with aSubway sticker on the back. Best of all, the license plate was 00069. Irode it through the streets of Beijing to sights like the Forbidden Cityand Tianamen Square, to the Dirt Market, the Silk Market and theRussian Market, and right past the Kentucky Fried Chicken to theSubway shop for lunch. The traffic was frightening, it seemed thateveryone had just got cars in Beijing, and that meant that everyonehad just got drivers licenses. It was like driving with thousands of sixteen-year olds. In 1997, there were only thousands. Nobody had anyidea just how many more there would be.But one day Rick took me out to the countryside where thepeasants were harvesting golden yellow corn to be dried on the road. Itwas warm and sunny and the natives smiled and waved as we droveover their crops, threshing their grain. We stopped for noodles andbeer at a roadside stand, bought persimmons and walnuts, and otherthings you do in the countryside. The grand finale was a group ride to the Great Wall. We left Beijing,a city that’s about the same physical size of Belgium, which in 1997hosted 11 million inhabitants. We rode and rode under the clear blueIndian summer sky. The high mountains of Inner Mongolia were visibleto the northwest, stark and raised in spiked brown peaks over whichlaid the territories of the dreaded Barbarians.Only ten percent of China is arable and farmland stretches right upto the feet of these mountains, not skipping a crevice as it follows thecontours of the flatlands. In October, the peasants were busyharvesting and used half the road as a drying surface for yellow corn.
The China Road Motorcycle Diaries
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Carla King
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