The car horns, ever the car horns wore me down, screaming at me all day
long. They screamed that I move, screamed that they were coming. There was
nothing too complicated, no situation too nuanced for explanation by car horn.
Each time, for a whole month, it felt as though my ear drum was being spliced
open with a blunt dagger. It hurt. I grunted, grimaced, shouted, grew ever more
furious, but it was futile, the car horn is invaluable to Chinese culture, it
props-up the nation itself. That horn expressed all standard scenarios of the
road plus infinite more besides. It was fired once to say ‘I’m behind you’, twice for ‘300metres’,
again for ‘200metres’… ‘parallel’.
And yet they kept going down the road with still more to come. I’ve overtaken you. This is fun. Fast. I
like driving in my car. I’m a taxi, you’re a pedestrian, let’s work something
out. Tunnels make echoes. Hello. Hellooow! It’s me! I second the horn of the
car in front. I’m about to overtake dangerously close to you. Bored. Scooter
overtakes bicycle on empty road. Turning. This is going to be close. I’m
driving like an idiot, be careful. I’ve hired this van for just a day, I want
my horn’s worth. This is how my father and brother drive!
I’m sorry to
produce such a tedious list, but that was how it felt. I imagined the hidden
rage that horn must have buried in the population, grew convinced that Chinese
society retained its order by use of that horn and the frustrations it
nullified. I’m 5’2” and identical to half a billion others, listen to this horn! My culture, history
and ethnicity is repressed… listen to
this horn! They think they’ve made an emancipated woman out of me, all they
did was give me a truck to drive through a desert… listen to this horn! I’m a homosexual but don’t even know it
because of this crushing, sexual conservatism… listen to this horn! 10% economic growth? Maybe on the East coast… listen to this horn! China? A great
nation? Then where are our basic freedoms?... listen to this horn! The sky is thick with smog, rivers run black,
and my child coughs blood… listen to this
horn! Listen to this horn! It was no use gesticulating, for if I waved a
fist at them in rage, they simply took it for greeting or support and let off
another volley of horn my way. There was no concern that could not be both
raised and answered by a Chinese person blasting off a round on a car or truck
horn. It was like a psychiatrist’s settee, it saved them from themselves. It
was their dissent, their protest, their therapy.
