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Before everyone had a car
Private cars are new in China. In 1990 there were almost none; a family vacation meant a train, often standing, and 开车 was something professional drivers did. Ownership then grew faster than almost anywhere in history, and 自驾游 — the self-driving trip — became a middle-class rite: the highway, the coast, a trunk full of snacks. The whole change happened inside one adult lifetime, which is why a Chinese person in their forties remembers childhood vacations in a completely different register from the one their own children will use.