Radio Free Asia By Gu Ting for RFA Mandarin 6/16/2023
Faced with rising living costs and a tanking economy, residents of China’s rural areas turn to unofficial toll booths to supplement their incomes, according to a recent video clip uploaded to social media.
In a video clip filmed from a truck driving from the northern city of Tangshan to Malanzhuang township in the northern province of Hebei and posted by several Twitter users, the truck slows as a tall figure blocks a road, before an older man with a cell phone gestures briefly indicating the price to pass through the unofficial “toll booth.”
“What’s that?” the truck driver says. “Talk to me! One yuan?”
A woman then holds out a phone with a QR code on it, as the driver says: “So we take WeChat Pay here, do we?”
While Radio Free Asia was unable to verify the video independently, commentators said the phenomenon isn’t new, but has likely seen a resurgence amid growing economic hardship in the wake of the three-year restrictions of Communist Party leader Xi Jinping’s zero-COVID policy.
Further along the same route, the truck pulls up again, to address an elderly woman in a burgundy blouse.
“What is it? Money you want?” the driver calls. The woman nods.
“How much? Five yuan?”
The process is repeated further down the highway, with two older women approaching his cab, waving cell phones and asking for payments of 10 yuan and 5 yuan respectively.
More:
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/toll-roads-hebei-06162023163617.html
