Muertos Che

DECEMBER 19, 2007: What do a blue 3-wheeled peasant truck, a maroon 3-wheeled peasant truck, a crane, an elevator and a bicycle have in common? Photos from Hebei and Shanxi

Why, isn't it obvious?...they're all "che"s. Not viva El "Chay" Che, but "chuhhh" che. Try saying it...it's a very addictive sound once you start, at least that proved the case with this small mind. But that's fine because in China, any 'wheeled vehicle' is a "che". In fact, it doesn't even need to have wheels (crane, elevator etc.), pretty much any machine that moves and is not a boat is a "che".

So, with "che"s all the rage among the upwardly-mobile Chinese peasantry, what exactly should the aspirational farmer expect from his brand new 3-wheeler - after he follows the face of China's biggest film star, Gong Li, down to his local 'Big Sun 3 Wheel' dealer? Here's a glimpse of the fascinating dramas that might just pan out in the first 2500km of his che's working life:
- Punctured front tyre (before leaving the showroom).
- Front brake doesn't work (dealer's comment: "oh, they're all like that, even the expensive ones").
- Handlebars snap off (day 2. Dealer repairs promptly).
- Reverse lights don't work (luckily there's a looped recording of a chipmunk squeaking, "PLEASE...NOTICE....CHE" instead).
- Speedometer stops working (but he's repaid for this because the odometer is linked to it, thus extending his 6000km warranty indefinitely).
- Brake lights don't work (thankfully, the brakes are so weak that it doesn't matter).
- Indicators stop working.
- Rear vision mirror screw thread breaks, rendering mirror useless.
- Engine cover comes loose (due to fearful rattling about 45km/h).
- Gearstick - metal gearstick - snaps off, leaving him stuck in fourth gear. (It happens on a pitch dark road in the freezing cold and he won't even realise until he's made it home, whereupon he'll have to search the road for more than an hour and only find it when he runs it over, partially destroying it.)
- The usually weak, ineffectual brakes suddenly lock up completely, without warning. He'll have a mechanic look at it, who won't understand the problem. He'll continue on his way and by the time he stops at the next workshop, the problem will have disappeared. But he'll be terribly worried because it's been snowing and there's copious ice on the roads and he knows if it happens when he's on the ice he will be, well, probably fucked. The next day will pass uneventfully until he hits a sudden rough patch in a black tunnel and screech uncontrollably to a halt with traffic behind him. By some miracle he'll survive and the next mechanic he shows it to will recognise that a large bolt holding the rear axle in place has fallen off.


- He'll decide to sell this "che" and return to the dark ages. But three kilometres from the buyer's place, it will shudder to a halt on a busy city intersection. He'll push it clear and find a mechanic. He'll push the "che" 2km to the workshop, where the mechanic will take it apart, piece by piece, until, after completely dismantling the engine, he identifies the problem as a very critical gear cog, completely worn out. He'll ring his supplier...but the peasant will have driven too far - he's out of "Big Sun 3 Wheel's sphere of influence! Here it's all 'Big Capital 3 Wheel'. As such his 6000km warranty will be completely useless and the spare part 3-4 days and a large sum of money away. Exactly thirty-five days after he rushedintoyourlocaldealertograbasuperdealtoday and purchased this che for 46 Chairman Maos, he'll sell it to the mechanic for 10. He'll leave it in 1000 different pieces. But he'll be alive.

But not necessarily. The second-last problem (the brakes locking up) was an atrociously dangerous one. Through the last week or so, every road had large patches of thick, smooth ice. If we happened to be on one of them when the brakes locked up, we really would have stood little chance against the traffic and/or mountain slopes. It was Boxxy's birthday. The only redemption is that China's a relatively good place to be brake-less, as drivers here tend to use the horn instead of brakes, and the obstacles are accordingly nimble as a result. As if driving on ice itself wasn't bad enough. All the roads except the highways were 90% covered in ice for 2 or 3 days after the snow. Especially the winding mountain roads. On the downhill parts, engine braking is the only way to slow down. If you can add the tiniest bit of braking, you can slow down, but the second you brake too much the wheels will lock up and you end up in the disconcerting position of having to release the brake if you want to slow down at all.

And the journey...


Our welcome to the final province, Hebei, was long, enthusiastic and very strange - thanks to one man: Master Zhao, pictured above. This guy spends all his spring, summer and autumn holiday time hiking along the Great Wall, solo. We met him randomly in his town, Chicheng ("Bare Wall"), and very mundanely - he saw us unloading the bags and came over to investigate. He insisted on taking us to dinner even though we didn't know him, so we paid and slipped out to check our email. When we got back to the hotel he was waiting for us, maggotted on baijiu and almost crying with joy to see us because he was "so worried" - evidently having forgotten my telling him we were going to 'shang the wang' (go on the internet). He invited himself up to our hotel room, ostensibly to make plans for a trip to some remote section of the wall the following day, but between primping my hair, inviting a drunken Communist Party boss to join us (who danced and sing and then passed out onto Boxxy, spilling burning tea all over her and her book, and then left), giving sudden massages to me and the Party goon, commenting on how "beautiful" i was, and posing for photos when i returned the complement (e.g. the one above), little planning was done.

Chinese men either put on a brave face for their toxic hangovers; at 7.30 sharp he was bashing on the door, bearing breakfast. At the service station a businessman on a scooter pulled up behind us just as the attendant finished serving a customer, got her attention by waving money and both proceeded to ignore my angry assertion that "we were next". Master Zhao was smiling - i asked if this would annoy him. "Yes," he replied, adding by way of explanation, "but he saw your 'che' and thought you were a peasant." When we reached, an hour or so later, what appeared to be the Great Wall, i went to park the che but no, said Master Zhao, 5 more kilometres. Here the road turned from surfaced to sand, then to a rocky river bed masquerading as a road that was so bumpy both Zhao and Boxxy had to get out and walk, so violently were they being thrown about. It wasn't a big problem as i could barely drive above walking pace anyway. After half an hour we came upon a group of 4 or 5 houses. The residents were busy dismembering a pig and clearly had no idea what we were doing. But another half an hour after asking them for directions, Mr Great Wall Master seemed to have lost the way. No sign of any Wall and at least 8km since he'd said 5km to go, with plenty of terrible road laid out in front. Here the road climbed a water channel on the side of a mountain that looked how i imagine Kurdistan or some other barren, mountainous, snowy, cold, utterly godforsaken place. About half way up the hill the ridge that constituted the road i was driving on ended and i had to cross to the other side of a water channel. As i was doing this the engine suddenly yelped like a dog being stung by a bee and suddenly i was standing with one foot on the ground, holding the che as it tried to roll, only my left leg between it and the bottom of the valley. No superman feat, however, the thing's so light that i was able to right it without any trouble at all. After crawling down the other side and through a village where animal shit and feed formed the road, we still hadn't seen any sign of impending Wall. As the narrow road skirted the hillside above a small gorge, suddenly there in front was a thick, slippery glacier that sloped gently across the road to the edge, then plummeted straight down into the gorge. Zhao recklessly told me to drive across it; i could only imagine half way across the wheels would lose grip and slide, slowly, slowly, towards the edge. We'd all jump out in time and try to stop it but agonisingly wouldn't get any grip on the smooth ice and the che would slide ever so gently over over the edge, roll three times and be wrecked at the bottom - 15 agonising kilometres from the nearest road. No, Master Zhao, no, we'll spend half an hour making a road across. And then we'll get there, walk through the magical snowy pine forest where the snow is untouched despite being weeks old and has a pine flavour.

This part of the wall appeared to be rocks, piled on top of each other. The Wall generally speaks for itself but Hebei and Beijing have by far the most spectacular Wall there is. So if you happen to want to see pictures, what i think are the recent decent ones are here.


After leaving Master Zhao behind we hit the Beijing area. That's the chunk of countryside extending 50-100km out from the actual Beijing. Surprisingly enough, being located close to one of the most polluted cities in the world, it's clearly the best countryside we travelled through in China. Mountains, birds' nests in the tree-lined roads, yadda yadda. The roads are excellent, and the road signs plentiful:


But strangely the Beijing authorities were stricter towards us - and the general population - than anywhere else. It's the only place i was ever asked for my licence; there are police check points at unexpected intervals, every single hotel required recording the details of both of our passport details before we could stay. Worst of all, in a place called "Pingu Area" (the following day's destination was "Bambi Mountain"), a small inn run by an old couple let us unpack, eat dinner, undress and almost sleep before telling us we couldn't stay due to some regulation that said foreigners can't stay in cheap hotels. You'd expect the most open part of China to be more open. Perhaps it is open to foreigners and we don't count. People around here have probably seen enough foreigners to know that they don't drive around in peasant trucks...what is it the WA Police call it..."probable cause"?

The Beijing government has rebuilt quite a few of the best parts of the wall for tourist purposes, none of which we visited. Far more interesting - horrific, some would say - was the part where they appeared to have started rebuilding and abandoned it half way through because they were fucking it up so badly.


A bunch of tourist-aimed businesses and aggressive sellers remain to pounce on the wayward traveller as they read the "Wall close strictly fobit climb" sign - and move on.

And on the last day it was all over. We drank beers on the end of the Wall. The one in the tin tasted good. The one in the bottle tasted bad. It would have been at sunset but the sun was already behind a thick cloud of smoke.
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