Taxi Drivers' view of the world

We have had several opportunities to discuss contemporary China with taxi drivers who ferry us back and forth. Most recently, the driver we hired to take us to Mu Tian Yu (our visit to the Great Wall) shared his perspective on several issues. A summary:

1. Our man is a middle aged gentleman, who wears his "fortune" in a good Chinese fashion (i.e., he's a bit over his fighting weight). He worked for 20 years as a government functionary, until economic reform made his particular function irrelevant and he and all his co-workers were let go. Originally, he said, he should have been able to work to retirement age in that job, then retire comfortably, but the job dried up and apparently all future benefits with it. So now he has his own car, and he drives people around...mainly foreigners, that is, and mainly to tourist sights surrounding Beijing. He is not, strictly speaking, a taxi driver -- there is no meter in his car. As such, he is also not operating within the boundaries of the law, and mentioned that should anyone (in uniform, especially) ask I should simply say he was our friend taking us out sightseeing. The advantage of this line of work, compared with his earlier vocation, is financial -- we paid him 400 RMB (about $50) for the day (8:30 am to 7pm) out of which he paid all his tolls and other travel costs. Apparently this line of work is significantly more lucrative than his previous, although it carries with it the risk of getting caught, which could cost him a year or two of his income. Overall, he seems content, and not too worried.

2. His car is a Chinese made car -- I'm not even sure what the brand name is in China, but he said this same model would soon be being sold in the US under a US brand name, because the Chinese company and the American company have a joint venture going on. The car felt solid and spacious, well built in so far as one can tell that sort of thing as a passanger. It had leather (faux?) seats and mahogany on the dash and side panels. He pointed to all the cars on the road, and had me notice the Chinese characters on the back of each car. We saw lots of Volkswagons, lots of Korean cars, a few Japanese models, a few French models, and almost no American cars. Apparently the US auto industry made some sort of an error awhile back, and their cars are seldom if ever sold in China, even though the Chinese would like to have them, according to my man. He said all the cars we saw are manufactured in China, regardless of manufacturer. According to him, no cars on the road in China have been imported from overseas, and the characters on the back indicate where in China they were made.

3. He drove us a little over an hour outside of Beijing to the Great Wall site we chose, and as we drove through nearby towns we discussed the towns, their inhabitants, and their prospects. Who are the people who live here, I asked, and what is their economy? Mainly tourism, it turns out, and some agriculture. The towns we passed through generally looked like their houses and businesses had been fairely recently rebuilt -- many traditional-style, single story grey concrete block buildings each with a solar powered water heater (these we see on tons of houses, everywhere we've been) on the roof. I asked where the money to rebuild came from...he explained that the people here earned a fairly good income catering to people from Beijing (Chinese people, that is) who drive out to the "countryside" for the weekend. These local tourists like to get away from the city, eat "peasant food", and spend their day playing Chinese chess or majiang and eating. The driver explained that the first priority for any Chinese person who has accumulated a bit of savings is to build a house, so all these new houses are built with the inhabitants' own resources. If I've understood correctly, they own the building, but not the land it stands on, and their rights to the building expire in 100 years or some such thing.