Anyone who reports a fellow road user in Shanghai will receive a reward

I look with amusement at the dashboard decoration of our bus. Two red pennants, one is the Chinese flag, the other represents the communist party. The driver must be a hugely state-fearing man, I initially think. Less than an hour later I know that a large proportion of Chinese motorists have this gem behind their windshield. The party’s electorate is doing well; We can still learn something from this in the fragmented political landscape of the Netherlands.

Fortunately, there is plenty to see along the way, because looking for distraction in your smartphone is hardly an option. China has blocked a large part of social media and news sites. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, NOS: all taboo in China. Fortunately, NU.nl can still receive Xi’s approval, so we are not completely deprived of news.

Officially they drive on the right in China, but in practice everything is swarming together, even on the highway. Our driver thinks the markings are meant to keep him exactly in the middle of his car. Oh yeah, and he’s under the impression that his accelerator pedal is a pump to get fuel from the tank. I have a strong stomach, but after a sleepless night of twelve hours curled up on a plane, my resistance is a bit less.

Yet the greatest test of my stomach is yet to come. We stop at a gas station just past Huzhou. A great opportunity for a light snack and fortunately there is a wide choice in the display case. I thank God on my knees that I am a vegetarian.

Then just buy a model car. A cheerfully cackling machine tries to sell me all kinds of nice things. You can even contact CuteRobot for a Tesla Cybertruck, mint green or baby blue.

Chinese people have a close bond with their horn. Driving means honking at anything that might come close to your own car. Anyone who has the audacity to come into your waters, you furiously honk the horn to the side, making city traffic a cacophony. Except in Shanghai, where unnecessary honking is strictly prohibited. And don’t think you can get away with it as long as there are no police around, because Shanghai has a lucrative system of social control. Anyone who captures the traffic violation of a fellow road user and gives it to the police will receive money for it. Dashcams are extremely popular there and pay for themselves.

The Netherlands is suffering from a dire housing shortage, but in China they know what to do with it. We regularly pass veritable forests of dozens of identical residential towers with dozens of floors. Gray concrete columns that compared to the GDR plattenbau were fun amusement parks. They remind me of urn walls and many windows are fitted with bars, probably to prevent the resident from doing the only right thing in a lucid moment.

Nice to note: passenger cars with fuel engines have blue license plates, electric cars are adorned with green license plates and commercial vehicles wear yellow. The first character on the license plate represents the province, in this case Anhui. The letter after that belongs to the city. Wuhu is the second city of Anhui, so it gets the letter B. The A is for the capital, Hefei.

A handy trinket found in many Chinese cars is a plastic sign with the driver’s phone number so you can call him in case the car is double-parked.

The fact that it is a Chinese brand that is breathing new life into the idea of ​​replaceable batteries is not that special when you consider that these yellow things are on every street corner here. They look like letterboxes, but are exchange stations where you can exchange your empty power bank for a full one.

I told you, we are guests of Chery, together with six hundred other people, mainly influencers from all over the world. Due to the geopolitical situation, Russia buys Chinese cars en masse and Russian guests are therefore treated with every respect. No opportunity is missed to give ‘our Russian friends’ a ‘very special welcome’. The factory site is cordoned off with flags of all countries where Chery is active. The Russian white-blue-red waves proudly among them, but fortunately Ukraine has not been forgotten. A few poles further, the Ukrainian flag is standing straight in the Chinese wind… upside down.

We may have come here for the electric models from Omoda and Jaecoo, but Chery still builds ICEs and that earns them a whole host of Saudi admirers. To paraphrase Tol Hansse: A Chery on – that’s interesting – oil from his homeland.

Nowadays, some car brands are also busy with artificial intelligence and Chery is building a robot to demonstrate his skills in that area, of which we can probably see a prototype. At least some of it. The art lady is ready from her midriff up and, as the engineer showing me around promises, she will soon do everything you ask of her. They don’t do dirty minds in China, as evidenced by the impassive tone in which he makes this somewhat ambiguous remark to us. To substantiate his statement, he gives the lady an assignment: “Sing me a song.” She remains silent and the Chinese repeats his command, a little louder this time: “Sing me a song!”. And yes, from a speaker between her shoulder blades a tinny helium voice sounds with a Chinese variation on ‘Farmer there is a Chicken in the Water’. Furby in 2023! Although twenty years ago Furby had more songs in her repertoire and could also blink her eyes.

But I’m starting to digress, so finally back to the cars. Nice phenomenon that we find in the center of Wuhu: a car cleaning company in a parking garage. Roll in your dirty barrel, do your thing in the city and when you go home again, your car is a piece of cake.