Driving a Japanese Car through Kaifeng – China

Diaoyu Islands Propaganda

At the height of the furore between China and Japan over fishing rights to the uninhabited Diaoyu Islands there were mobs roaming the streets destroying Japanese restaurants and goods. People were so overcome with patriotism they were even destroying their own Japanese cars.

In the midst of this, we decided to go on a 5700km road trip through the backwaters of China with two Chinese friends and their Japanese car.

China Road Trip Map, heading south from Beijing

Here’s a quick primer on the dispute from the BBC and another from OnlineMBA.

Anti-Japanese sentiment in Beijing has been relatively muted, apart from constant protests outside the Japanese embassy. The main effect in our corner of Beijing has been that the local sushi restaurant has covered up its Japanese hoarding. The lack of Chinese patrons meant service was quicker than usual, so we were impelled to visit quite regularly.

The further we drove into the countryside the more Chinese flags and pictures of the Diaoyu Islands we spotted, including this violence-endorsing bumper sticker:

Anti-Japanese cars bumper sticker

Surely no-one would attack a car simply for being foreign…oh:

By the time we reached Kaifeng, some 700km south of Beijing, every shop, hotel and office had at least one flag hanging by the door. Driving through the narrow streets, every other Japanese car was adorned with Chinese flag stickers covering up all signs of their brand.

Given that Japanese car manufacturers dominate the market in China, somewhere there’s a man getting very rich by producing these Chinese flag stickers.

Chinese flags outside a bank

Weibo was awash with rumours that the crowds are spurred on by shadowy men, who do their best to stir up anger and incite violence…This is of course in no way intended to distract the general populace from the ongoing political leadership battles… No arrests have been made over destruction of property, including one man caught burning down a car factory. He lost hundreds of people their jobs, but was let off as he was ‘just being patriotic’.

Imperial Street of Song Dynasty in Kaifeng

Kaifeng

Kaifeng is famous for three  things. Once being the capital of China, the Kaifeng Jews and soupy buns.

Kaifeng was one of the Seven Ancient Capitals of China, along with Beijing, Nanjing, Luoyang, Xi’an, Hangzhou, Anyang and Zhengzhou. (To my count, that makes Eight Ancient Capitals, but nobody seems to mind).

The Jewish faith is very rare amongst Chinese, with no official estimates of numbers. The Kaifeng Jews were a small group that travelled to China from India or Persia about a thousand years ago. Today there are 400-500 Chinese Jews left in Kaifeng, still following Jewish customs.

Various sights in town include the Iron Pagoda, the Dragon Pavilion and the city walls and gates. I would have enjoyed visiting a few of these, but as soon as we stopped our friend got a little paranoid about the leaving the car unattended.

Being impossible to persuade him otherwise, we instead parked outside a famous soupy bun shop for lunch.

Kaifeng Soupy Buns…yes, we were hungry

Ducking under the Chinese flag hanging over the door we sat down at looked at the menu. It was quite a short menu, consisting solely of soupy buns.

Three trays of buns arrived, along with some spicy pickled cabbage, which seems to be a regional speciality.

Whilst we ate the suspiciously foaming meat, our friend snacked quickly then went outside for a smoke, disappearing off down an alleyway. When the rest of us finished lunch we emerged to find him applying far too many newly purchased Chinese flag stickers to the car.

Great, now I was driving round in the obviously Japanese Chinamobile.

Whilst this wasn’t ideal, every so often we’d pull over and get some annoyed stares, then the random foreigner would climb out and the annoyance would turn to confusion, then laughter.

This laughing and pointing amused our driving friend greatly, to the extent that I wondered if I could somehow roll his car over, and when the police arrive, claim I was ‘just being patriotic’.

Noticably, now the leadership transition is complete, the Diaoyu Islands have disappeared from the news and the fervent protesters went back to work in the Japanese factories.

Anti-Japanese Diaoyu Propaganda for Kids

Hopefully related posts:

Chinese Driving Lessons: Taking the Test in Beijing Chinese Driving Lessons: Unexpected hazards A slice of rural life in Sichuan Province – Dazu Driving to Songpan through the mountains of Sichuan Province