Chinese Fire Drill

Welcome to the 21st Century, Xiamen, China!

In a classic example of putting the cart before the horse (in The Year of the freaking PIG, no less), the New Red Menace has relaxed its restrictions regarding automobile ownership without requiring aspiring motorists to pass anything even approaching basic roadsmanship.

Just because you can navigate a rusty bike with no brakes through a rice paddy while balancing a chicken on the handlebars doesn't qualify you to jump into a 2-ton vehicle and bolt for your shift at the Fortune Cookie Factory. You fail to stop while pedaling a '72 Schwinn and you dent a curbside wicker basket. You fail to stop while behind the wheel of a '92 Suburban and the national population drops by six. (Of course, in that same time span, 2,375 people are born, so you're still up 2,369.)

So while enjoying such things as iPods and Xboxes 360, the Chinese are also learning about another Western indulgence: Road Rage. Along with the aroma of Boiled Goat and Sharpei Lo Mein, the air in major metropolitan areas is filled with screams of "Fruck Yoo!" and "Get out of the Buddahdamn Way!"

The members of the Rickshaw Drivers' Local 421 filed a formal protest and were summarily shot in the streets.