As I read the first 30 pages in “Country Driving: A Chinese Road Trip by Peter Hessler,” the first thing that struck me was China seemed as a nation in the midst of extreme transition. The author allows the reader a scaled down my personal experience with the tumultuous years of rapid growth in China by examining the expansion of automobiles in the PRC. The first aspect that truly stood out was the lag time between the expansion of automobiles and the automotive policies of the PRC. From its questions of the Chinese driver examination, which at times were quite humorous, to the cloverleaf traffic patterns that the author described as having been possible designed by M.C Escher, the government of the PRC seems out of touch with what is necessary for a something running  automotive based society, like those found in the United States, Canada and Western Europe. This was perfectly illustrated when the author was planning his trip using a Chinese road atlas. In the United States, for example, there is a clear hierarchy of roads from the Interstate System, to Federal and State Highways down to municipal streets. All of these routes are both named and numbered to prevent confusion. However in China only the largest roads are named and smaller roads have no description or identifying factors on a map. This can lead to several problems from the ability to determine location to anticipation a paved road and finding yourself traveling down a dried creek bed. The author also described the effects the communist revolution has had on China by interviewing everyday people as he traveled across the state. He stated that during the cultural revolution, where Mao advocated the destruction of anything that can be seen as anti-communist. This included not only rightist activists but also anything pagan including most cultural traditions and religions and even ancient structures such as temples and the Great Wall. Much of ancient Chinese culture was lost and knowledge of the past can sometimes be found in village elders who remember the days before the revolution.