生长于湄公河边那些陡峭山丘之上的凤梨特别甜，红色和橙色的辣椒特别辣，香葱和豆瓣菜上还有山间露水的清新气味。多年来，要把这些珍贵农产品带到市场，意味着人们要提着巨大的篮子，花大力气在贯穿丛林的狭窄山路跋涉一天。
情况改变了，这很大程度上多亏了中国。
村民骑着他们廉价的中国摩托（只要440美元）穿过泥泞的道路到达琅勃拉邦（Luang Prabang）的市场。这座迷人的佛教寺庙之城吸引了大量外国游客。而骑摩托从山里到这里只需要一个半小时。
43岁的教师Khamphao Janphasid表示，之前没有人有摩托，而现在他的大家族就有三辆。“以前唯一可以买得到的摩托就是日本摩托，而穷人买不起。”
便宜的中国产品涌入中国南方邻国，例如柬埔寨、老挝、缅甸和越南。这些产品改变了亚洲一些最贫困人们的生活。在几年前，这些人们通常只拥有一两套衣服、做饭的器具和人工建造的茅屋。
西方担心中国玩具和宠物食品的安全，但对这些身处偏远山村的人们来说，这些基本上是没有实际意义的。随着全球资本主义的引入，中国产品赢得了由衷的赞赏。Khamphao Janphasid表示，生活好转了，因为物价便宜了。
中国的电视机和卫星天线让村民和世界各地有了联系。音响设备让住家洋溢着音乐。而且中国摩托车常常充当家庭的运输工具。一名村领导表示，这些摩托（通常是小型的，但引擎足够110cc）实际上救了命。他表示，“现在我们可以及时把病人送去医院。”在十年前，村民还是步行用担架来运送重病人，这些如今已经成为历史。村子有150户人家，有44辆中国摩托。在五年前还没有一辆呢。
中国摩托充斥着河内、万象、曼德勒以及东南亚其他高地大城市的街道。根据本田（Honda）的数据，越南每年出售的两百万辆摩托中，有39%是中国品牌，而本田就占有34%的市场份额。
村民对中国商品充满热情，但常常也有抱怨：维护问题。31岁的摩托修理工Gu Silibapaan表示，日本品牌的质量要好得多，人们有钱可以买本田、雅马哈和铃木摩托，有很多钱就可以买汽车。
他表示，一些泰国制造的日本摩托用上十年都不需要检查引擎，而中国摩托通常三到四年就需要大修。不过最便宜的泰国造本田摩托需要5.5万铢，大约是1670美元，价格差不多是最便宜的中国摩托的四倍。
中国摩托的涌入令琅勃拉邦机械修理工生意兴隆。Gu Silibapaan表示，十年前，这座城市只有两三家修理店，而现在他看到了20家。他不用担心自己的摩托车的维护，“我有一辆本田”。
英文原文：
In Laos, Chinese Motorcycles Change Lives
LONG LAO GAO, Laos — The pineapples that grow on the steep hills above the Mekong River are especially sweet, the red and orange chilies unusually spicy, and the spring onions and watercress retain the freshness of the mountain dew.
Skip to next paragraph Enlarge This Image Thomas Miller/The International Herald Tribune
Khamphao Janphasid, a schoolteacher, riding his Chinese motorcycle from Long Lao Gao to Luang Prabang.
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Now, a faster trip from Long Lao Gao to Luang Prabang.
For years, getting this prized produce to market meant that someone had to carry a giant basket on a back-breaking, daylong trek down narrow mountain trails cutting through the jungle.
That is changing, thanks in large part to China.
Villagers ride their cheap Chinese motorcycles, which sell for as little as $440, down a dirt road to the markets of Luang Prabang, a charming city of Buddhist temples along the Mekong that draws flocks of foreign tourists. The trip takes one and a half hours.
“No one had a motorcycle before,” said Khamphao Janphasid, 43, a teacher in the local school whose extended family now has three of them. “The only motorcycles that used to be available were Japanese, and poor people couldn’t afford them.”
Inexpensive Chinese products are flooding China’s southern neighbors like Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. The products are transforming the lives of some of the poorest people in Asia, whose worldly possessions a few years ago typically consisted of not much more than one or two sets of clothes, cooking utensils and a thatch-roofed house built by hand.
The concerns in the West about the safety of Chinese toys and pet food are largely moot for the people in the remote villages here. As the introduction to global capitalism, Chinese products are met with deep appreciation. “Life is better,” Mr. Khamphao said, “because prices are cheaper.”
Chinese television sets and satellite dishes connect villagers to the world. Stereos fill their houses with music. And the Chinese motorcycles often serve as transportation for families.
The motorcycles, typically with small but adequate 110cc, or cubic centimeter, engines, literally save lives, said Saidoa Wu, the village leader of Long Lao Mai, in a valley at the end of the dirt road, adjacent to Long Lao Gao.
“Now when we have a sick person we can get to the hospital in time,” said Mr. Wu, 43.
The improvised bamboo stretchers that villagers here used as recently as a decade ago to carry the gravely ill on foot are history. In a village of 150 families, Mr. Wu counts 44 Chinese motorcycles. There were none five years ago.
Chinese motorbikes fill the streets of Hanoi, Vientiane, Mandalay and other large cities in upland Southeast Asia. Thirty-nine percent of the two million motorcycles sold annually in Vietnam are Chinese brands, according to Honda, which has a 34 percent market share.
Chinese exports to Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam amounted to $8.3 billion in the first eight months of the year, up about 50 percent from the same period in 2006.
About seven years ago, residents here say, Chinese salesmen began arriving with suitcases filled with smuggled watches, tools and small radios; they would close up and move on when the police arrived. More recently, Chinese merchants, who speak only passable Lao, received permission to open permanent stalls in the towns and small cities across the region. In Laos, these are “talad jin,” or Chinese markets.
Mr. Khamphao and his neighbors all have $100 Chinese-made television sets connected to Chinese-made satellite dishes and decoders, causing both joy and occasional tension among family members sitting on the bare concrete or dirt floors of their living rooms. “I like watching the news,” Mr. Khamphao said. “My children love to watch movies.”
A two-hour interview with Mr. Khamphao was interrupted twice: once when his buffalo in the adjoining field gave birth to a healthy calf and a second time when a cable TV channel was showing “Lost in Translation,” and the actor Bill Murray sang an off-key rendition of Bryan Ferry’s “More Than This.”
Mr. Khamphao’s children, whose daily lives are largely confined to the mountain village, have picked up the Thai language from television, and they sing along to commercials broadcast from Thailand.
The enthusiasm for Chinese goods here is tempered by one commonly heard complaint: maintenance problems.
“The quality of the Japanese brands is much better,” said Gu Silibapaan, a 31-year-old motorcycle mechanic in Luang Prabang. People with money, he said, buy Honda, Yamaha and Suzuki motorcycles. People with lots of money buy cars.
Mr. Gu said he could tell a Japanese brand, made in Thailand, just by listening to the engine.
“It sounds more firm, and the engine noise is softer,” Mr. Gu said. Some Thai-made Japanese motorcycles can go 10 years without an engine overhaul. Chinese bikes, he said, usually need major repairs within three to four years.
“I want a motorcycle from Thailand, but I don’t have the money,” said Kon Panlachit, a police officer who brought his Jinlong 110cc motorcycle to Mr. Gu’s shop for repairs recently.
“When I ride it, it makes a noise — dap, dap dap,” Mr. Kon said. “It’s the second time I’ve brought it here for this problem.”
The cheapest Thai-made Honda goes for 55,000 baht, about $1,670 — four times the price of the cheapest Chinese bikes, sold under many brands.
The influx of Chinese motorcycles is keeping mechanics busy in Luang Prabang. A decade ago there were only two or three repair shops in the city, Mr. Gu said. Now he counts 20.
Mr. Gu does not worry about maintenance for his own motorcycle. “I have a Honda,” he said.
