This is Randi Hacker with another Postcard from Abroad from the KU Center for East Asian Studies.

Not so long ago, you could pretty much count the number of private cars in China on, as Dorothy Pepper might have said, the thumbs of one hand. But though China’s vehicle population is now over 250 million, it isn’t easy or cheap to get a driver’s license here. Citizens can wait as long as a year and pay as much as $800. Which is why driver’s licenses have joined pop music, soap operas and fashion as something to get from South Korea. In Korea, you can get a license in a week and a written test will convert a Korean license into a Chinese one, once you get home. Korean driving schools offer classroom instruction in Mandarin and real time on a roof top track. So what if a roof top track provides no real road experience? Chinese roads are so congested; you are likely to do more sitting than driving anyway, so why worry?

From the KU Center for East Asian Studies, this is Randi Hacker. Wish you were here.