PEKING (AP) - Chicken farmer Sun Guiying and her family plunked down
9,300 yuan - $4,650 - in cash recently and became the first ordinary
family in Peking to buy a car.
    The local Communist Party newspaper heralded the purchases as a
major event.''Happy purchase of Toyota for Sun Guiying, the best
chicken farmer in the country,'' read the headline in Tuesday's Peking
Daily, alongside a picture of Miss Sun, her family and the vehicle.
    Few of China's 1 billion people ever have ridden in a car, much less
owned one. Even Communist Party members, who travel around in
curtained sedans, don't own their cars - they belong to the state.
    But many peasants are now able to afford vehicles because they have
increased their income under the Communists' relaxed economic
policies that permit private enterprise.
    Last year, it said, Miss Sun's family sold more than 70,400 pounds
of eggs for a profit of $18,500, a fortune compared with peasant
earnings in the poorest parts of China are as low as $50 a year.