斑竹请进
这个是这期Newsweek里吹的。
偶想不是刹版也是熟识的朋友吧。
介绍几个给俺认识认识行不。别人不行，就那个开饭馆一天挣好几百dollar的就中。 赫赫。
下回俺回国拿个驾照也去彪彪车。
============================================
'We Want to Push the Limits'
Craig Simons. Newsweek. New York: May 9, 2005.
Yuan Jun likes to have his foot on the gas. Wearing rose-colored glasses and a tan aviator vest, he rests one hand on the steering wheel of his Toyota Land Cruiser and holds a CB radio mike in the other. The passing scenery is lovely: stone houses with graytile roofs scattered between golden fields of blossoming rapeseed. But Yuan hardly sees it. He's busy snapping instructions into the CB for a line of SUVs-Jeep Grand Cherokees, Isuzu Rodeos, Nissan Paladins-strung along the highway behind us. Since he bought his first car in 1991, Yuan figures he's clocked more than 600,000 miles, including several monthlong trips to western Tibet, Laos and India. He's seen his share of beauty. But he's moved instead by the feeling in his gut. "In the city," he says, "everything seems the same-the same work, the same people, the same experiences. On the road, it's all new."
That restless spirit-the urge for novel experiences, the quest for new frontiers, the possibilities for escape and renewal, even the willingness to slog through traffic to get to work-has long fueled America. Now it's gripping China. Even 10 years ago, when the average American spent nearly an hour driving each day, the Chinese owned only 10.4 million vehicles, almost all of them in government and corporate fleets. Today that number has grown to more than 23 million. New sales surged 82 percent in 2003 and 11 percent last year, even after Beijing slapped curbs on bank loans to slow its red-hot economy. More than 40 million Chinese have driver's licenses, and a 2003 survey by Swiss consulting firm CBC found that 40 percent of Chinese families are planning to buy new automobiles. "Cars have given people a chance to pursue freedom," says Beijing University sociologist Xia Xuelan. "They have opened up a space for private life."
Hitting the road offers a good view of China's horizons. In early March, NEWSWEEK joined Yuan and members of his Jeep-Land 4x4 OffRoad Club for a three-day rumble through the countryside. We set off from Chengdu, traveled to the small Tibetan - and - Han city of Kangding, and from there headed west to the base of Mount Gongga, at 25,000 feet one of the world's tallest mountains. A dozen SUVs and three dozen people, most of them club members, covered 700 miles, passing countless restaurants, bars and brothels that service China's increasingly mobile population. "In China, we say that reading 10,000 books is not as good as walking 10,000 new roads," Yuan fells me as we cruise through a tiny village where students wearing red bandannas line up to watch. "That's really true."
Yuan can afford his hobby because he quit a job as a mechanic at a state - run firm in 1990 to open a trading company. Now he owns a shoe factory that has financed six cars-including his fully outfitted, $100,000 Land Cruiser-and a four-bedroom apartment. He's picked up all sorts of treasures on the road: girlfriends in Yunnan and Tibet, a traditional Buddhist painting in Lhasa, and a more open mind. "When I grew up our teachers taught us that Tibetan culture was backward," he says. "But now I understand that their faith is their life."
Beijing has pumped billions of dollars into making travel easier. The length of China's highway network is second only to the United States and the government announced in January that if will spend $200 billion over the next 25 years to nearly triple that; total mileage is expected to surpass America's around 2020, One planned expressway (many call it a fantasy) would connect the mainland with Taipei, Taiwan's capital, across 125 miles of open water prone to typhoons.
Sometimes it seems that everyone in China wants to be better, bigger, faster. On a narrow highway west of Kangding, one club driver after another-a banker, a designer, a handful of businessmen, mechanics and photographers- began to play a road version of leapfrog, zipping past each other as rocks kicked loose by their tires tumbled hundreds of feet into the valley. A few miles up the road we pulled into a dusty Sinopecgas station and topped up with 93-octane fuel. Compared with the U.S., the price of $1.84 a gallon is low, but for most Chinese, filling up an SUV would cost at least a week's earnings. For these drivers, however, the cost is trivial: one club member earned a million dollars speculating on real estate in the 1990s, another owns restaurants that make him hundreds of dollars daily. They joke about getting $20 speedingfines: "To any of us, $20 is nothing," Yuan says, adding that China's insurance industry is only beginning to use ticket histories to calculate premiums. That may explain why so many Chinese drivers speed. But Yuan has another idea: "We were held back for so long," he says, "that now we want to push the limits."
China's thrill ride has obvious costs. Since 1985, the number of people killed on Chinese roads has increased fivefold: in 2003, more than 104,000 Chinese were killed in traffic accidents, more than double the U.S. total-even though the U.S. has almost nine times as many cars. Another cost is the price of oil: while Mideast instability and other factors have contributed to recent $56 per barrel prices, so has Chinese consumption-China's oil imports doubled over the past five years, much of that to fuel the country's transportation boom.
The longer-term shifts are also ominous. According to the World Wildlife Fund, China already produces 16 percent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions, and within 30 years it's expected to contribute as much to climate change as the U.S., currently responsible for a quarter of the world's carbon dioxide pollution. If every Chinese citizen consumed as much energy as Americans do, China would use all the petroleum currently produced in the world. Chinese scientists have tracked some of the 46,000 glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau with increasing alarm. Some scientists predict that rising temperatures will melt most of China's glaciers within this century, taking with them the sources of Asia's greatest rivers-the Yangtze, the Yellow, the Indus, the Mekong.
Yuan understands the dangers, but he notes that Americans now are having more impact on the global environment. And what are they doing about it? "We want to enjoy the best life we can have," he says. A few hours later he wheels his Land Cruiser onto a shelf of snow, tightens the suspension and leads the SUVs up the steep slope until-wheels spinning against snow-he can go no higher. Whooping with joy, Yuan whips his vehicle into a figure 8. It's the kind of live-for-the-moment attitude that marks his generation. "We grew up in a world where everything was rigid," he says. "Now we're free."
偶想不是刹版也是熟识的朋友吧。
介绍几个给俺认识认识行不。别人不行，就那个开饭馆一天挣好几百dollar的就中。 赫赫。
下回俺回国拿个驾照也去彪彪车。
============================================
'We Want to Push the Limits'
Craig Simons. Newsweek. New York: May 9, 2005.
Yuan Jun likes to have his foot on the gas. Wearing rose-colored glasses and a tan aviator vest, he rests one hand on the steering wheel of his Toyota Land Cruiser and holds a CB radio mike in the other. The passing scenery is lovely: stone houses with graytile roofs scattered between golden fields of blossoming rapeseed. But Yuan hardly sees it. He's busy snapping instructions into the CB for a line of SUVs-Jeep Grand Cherokees, Isuzu Rodeos, Nissan Paladins-strung along the highway behind us. Since he bought his first car in 1991, Yuan figures he's clocked more than 600,000 miles, including several monthlong trips to western Tibet, Laos and India. He's seen his share of beauty. But he's moved instead by the feeling in his gut. "In the city," he says, "everything seems the same-the same work, the same people, the same experiences. On the road, it's all new."
That restless spirit-the urge for novel experiences, the quest for new frontiers, the possibilities for escape and renewal, even the willingness to slog through traffic to get to work-has long fueled America. Now it's gripping China. Even 10 years ago, when the average American spent nearly an hour driving each day, the Chinese owned only 10.4 million vehicles, almost all of them in government and corporate fleets. Today that number has grown to more than 23 million. New sales surged 82 percent in 2003 and 11 percent last year, even after Beijing slapped curbs on bank loans to slow its red-hot economy. More than 40 million Chinese have driver's licenses, and a 2003 survey by Swiss consulting firm CBC found that 40 percent of Chinese families are planning to buy new automobiles. "Cars have given people a chance to pursue freedom," says Beijing University sociologist Xia Xuelan. "They have opened up a space for private life."
Hitting the road offers a good view of China's horizons. In early March, NEWSWEEK joined Yuan and members of his Jeep-Land 4x4 OffRoad Club for a three-day rumble through the countryside. We set off from Chengdu, traveled to the small Tibetan - and - Han city of Kangding, and from there headed west to the base of Mount Gongga, at 25,000 feet one of the world's tallest mountains. A dozen SUVs and three dozen people, most of them club members, covered 700 miles, passing countless restaurants, bars and brothels that service China's increasingly mobile population. "In China, we say that reading 10,000 books is not as good as walking 10,000 new roads," Yuan fells me as we cruise through a tiny village where students wearing red bandannas line up to watch. "That's really true."
Yuan can afford his hobby because he quit a job as a mechanic at a state - run firm in 1990 to open a trading company. Now he owns a shoe factory that has financed six cars-including his fully outfitted, $100,000 Land Cruiser-and a four-bedroom apartment. He's picked up all sorts of treasures on the road: girlfriends in Yunnan and Tibet, a traditional Buddhist painting in Lhasa, and a more open mind. "When I grew up our teachers taught us that Tibetan culture was backward," he says. "But now I understand that their faith is their life."
Beijing has pumped billions of dollars into making travel easier. The length of China's highway network is second only to the United States and the government announced in January that if will spend $200 billion over the next 25 years to nearly triple that; total mileage is expected to surpass America's around 2020, One planned expressway (many call it a fantasy) would connect the mainland with Taipei, Taiwan's capital, across 125 miles of open water prone to typhoons.
Sometimes it seems that everyone in China wants to be better, bigger, faster. On a narrow highway west of Kangding, one club driver after another-a banker, a designer, a handful of businessmen, mechanics and photographers- began to play a road version of leapfrog, zipping past each other as rocks kicked loose by their tires tumbled hundreds of feet into the valley. A few miles up the road we pulled into a dusty Sinopecgas station and topped up with 93-octane fuel. Compared with the U.S., the price of $1.84 a gallon is low, but for most Chinese, filling up an SUV would cost at least a week's earnings. For these drivers, however, the cost is trivial: one club member earned a million dollars speculating on real estate in the 1990s, another owns restaurants that make him hundreds of dollars daily. They joke about getting $20 speedingfines: "To any of us, $20 is nothing," Yuan says, adding that China's insurance industry is only beginning to use ticket histories to calculate premiums. That may explain why so many Chinese drivers speed. But Yuan has another idea: "We were held back for so long," he says, "that now we want to push the limits."
China's thrill ride has obvious costs. Since 1985, the number of people killed on Chinese roads has increased fivefold: in 2003, more than 104,000 Chinese were killed in traffic accidents, more than double the U.S. total-even though the U.S. has almost nine times as many cars. Another cost is the price of oil: while Mideast instability and other factors have contributed to recent $56 per barrel prices, so has Chinese consumption-China's oil imports doubled over the past five years, much of that to fuel the country's transportation boom.
The longer-term shifts are also ominous. According to the World Wildlife Fund, China already produces 16 percent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions, and within 30 years it's expected to contribute as much to climate change as the U.S., currently responsible for a quarter of the world's carbon dioxide pollution. If every Chinese citizen consumed as much energy as Americans do, China would use all the petroleum currently produced in the world. Chinese scientists have tracked some of the 46,000 glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau with increasing alarm. Some scientists predict that rising temperatures will melt most of China's glaciers within this century, taking with them the sources of Asia's greatest rivers-the Yangtze, the Yellow, the Indus, the Mekong.
Yuan understands the dangers, but he notes that Americans now are having more impact on the global environment. And what are they doing about it? "We want to enjoy the best life we can have," he says. A few hours later he wheels his Land Cruiser onto a shelf of snow, tightens the suspension and leads the SUVs up the steep slope until-wheels spinning against snow-he can go no higher. Whooping with joy, Yuan whips his vehicle into a figure 8. It's the kind of live-for-the-moment attitude that marks his generation. "We grew up in a world where everything was rigid," he says. "Now we're free."
标签：
添加标签
- 标题
- 作者
- 时间
- 长度
- 点击
- 评价
-
- 斑竹请进
- shamu
- 2005-05-13 01:16
- 6961
- 401
- 0/0