Song of Storms

If you are going to steal a car in Penghan, you should do it during a thunderstorm.

I've been in China for almost a week, and already there have been two spectacular thunderstorms. The weather here in August is very hot and humid, but the storms break through the heat with surprising suddenness and ferocity.

First comes the wind, blowing debris across the roads and bending treas within its path. Like a grim pall bearer, the wind carries on its tail a sheet of boiling, dark clods. They sweep in suddenly, a dark hue overtaking an already gray sky. And as the sky continues to darken and the wind is whipped into a frenzy, the thunder and lightning begin, which brings about a whole new cacophony: the car alarms.

Each crack of thunder is so loud that it triggers the car alarm of almost every automobile in the city, sending up a demonic howling of wails, beeps, and screeches that echo through the streets and bounce off the solemn industrial buildings. After about ten seconds the cars stumble into an embarrassed silence...until the next shuddering boom, when they are startled into song once again. A car thief would have no worries about tripping an alarm, for it would be only one voice in the chorus of hundreds.

In fact, a thief would have a good twenty minutes of relative safety provided by the chaos...until the rain starts, and any rascal would have a hard-pressed time breaking into a car with buckets of water streaming into their eyes. When the rain finally comes, it is a downpour so thick and complete that you can hardly see across the street, and in a matter of minutes there is a layer of several inches of water blanketing the roads. When the wind slices through the torrents, the falling water twists into serpents of glittering silver. All the while, lightning blazes across the sky, thunder cracks, and the car alarms continue their plaintive wailing.