Though the maximum daytime temperature has dropped to 10 degrees below zero, most driving schools in the northeastern industrial base of Shenyang are packed with trainees.

"We didn't used to have so many trainees on cold winter days," said Guan Guohua, who has been coaching for 10 years at a driving school on the outskirts.

This year, however, the number of trainees kept rising as the holiday season drew near, he said.

Forty-year-old Shen, a student of Guan's, has been doing steel business with her husband since she was laid off from a state firm five years ago. The couple bought a car earlier this year, and Shen, encouraged by her family, started to learn how to drive.

Zu Liansheng with the city's traffic administration said many citizens in Shenyang started learning to drive only when they had bought a car.

Ten years ago, in contrast, most people would go to a driving school in order to be a full-time driver. The few well-off people who learned to drive so that they could buy a car were envied by all.

Nowadays, at least 50,000 Shenyang citizens get driving licenses each year, said Zu, and "it's not rare to see a husband and his wife and a father and his son taking driving lessons together."

At some driving schools, the number of female trainees has been found to top that of males.

Yin, who helps her husband and son with their family business --a mineral water delivery service -- is working hard to get her license by the end of the year.

"But even if I succeed, I'd still be the last one in our familyto get a license," she said.

College students are another big group at most driving schools in Shenyang. Some colleges have even included driving as a mandatory course in their curricula and arrange courses and paper and road tests for the students during vacations.

"A driving license is not just an advantage for me on the job market, it will make life easier for myself and my family in the long run," said a teenage college girl who has just passed her road test.

(Xinhua News Agency January 2, 2003)