beijing: May 2010 Archives
Reporting live from the roads of Beijing..........
I am certainly not a passive cycle commuter and I really do like the colour red - in particular with all it's connotations in this special communist state. The name "Red Rager" was given to me back during The Tour de Chine and I work hard to uphold my worthiness of it while at the same time trying to win the game of "Face" - the rules to which will become apparent in the following soliloquy.
White shoes, red socks, black shorts, black shirt, yellow glasses... as the camera pans in I slowly and coolly put on my red helmet and red gloves, then pop the red panier onto my red bike. I swing my right leg over the seat and straddle my baby... I am now, officially, the Red Rager.
Cue music.
Looking around now I notice the sun is a bit past high noon, and the afternoon traffic has begun. But honestly, did it ever end? It must be at least 330. I deeply inhale and smile as I soak it all in - then choke a bit from the dust and what is fondly known here as 'fog' but is certainly Something that Makes me think there is no 'f' before the OG. But calling it fog keeps us all a little happier in 'we all pretend nothing is wrong on the surface' world.
And I spit.
Sometimes one forgets where one is during a perfect moment, then is subsequently reminded with a smack, kick, honk, or in this case, phlegm.
I am, as we speak, getting reacquainted with Reba, my lovely bicycle (did I mention she is red?) as I ride her from my old 'home' to my new one on this fine Summer day in the capital of the PRC. After the preliminary preparations, I flick the switch; an old Bruce Springsteen song starts to rock in my ears; and I start to roll.
Oh sweet, sweet Reba.
I start off at each light way ahead of everyone the second it turns green. It is a race, of course, to the next set of lights. Which I must win and which is apparently not fun to anyone else on a bike in Beijing, as they prefer to play the game of 'who can get there last' instead. But we all, always, end up at the next red light together. Waiting. or, in some cases, not.
Occasionally an e-bike or a car veers in front, thinking I am a typical "slow" bike....thus begins the game of 'face' as I try to educate the masses and stay alive at the same time.
I win a point when I behave the most serenely - the most zen.
I lose a point if I sneer, veer, or brake...let alone if I yell or curse - things a Red Rager must do at times, even armed with the knowledge this behavior will lose her points.
There's a red light up ahead. Michael Jackson's Thriller just came on. Do I stop? I am not even within the third ring road yet. Things are different out here. It's like a whole new frontier. Almost the Wild West in a concrete jungle sort of way but with more dust and less whistling. The cars seem to keep going and so I stop pedaling but don't break. Still red, still red, still red. The bikes all keep going too. And all the people are going across. Ah, it must be yet another green light simply disguised as a red one. Silly me, I should have known.
See, there is democracy in China. Majority rules.
I continue through and think to myself that the right thing to do in a country where there are few enforced laws and no religion is simply whatever-everyone-else-is-doing.
Along with democracy on the roads in China there is also a caste system. To make it simple I will keep it to 4 levels. The top level are, straight-shooter, the busses. Most of which are either double decker or the double long accordion-in-the-middle types. Not only do the busses do whatever they please but they also get the most respect. Even I won't dabble in a game with these upper echelons on society.
The second highest class would have to be police and government vehicles, and the neuveaux riches (porche, audi, hummer, beamer, etc), the latter of which I try to make my focus of "Face", as they are the easiest to win points off of - being that they've usually been driving for one year tops, and still revere the good old tall nose, round eyed laowai.
In the next class, the third class, we have taxis and bikes. I do not consider myself in this class (surprise, surprise). I seat myself snugly in the middle of slow pedal biker and crazy-eyed taxi driver. I might look like a 2 but I act like a 3. And I've got the scars and medals to prove it.
The untouchables in this caste system would be pedestrians. If you have the misfortune of being born unto this class, do not, for any reason, think if any of the higher classes are coming towards you, that they will stop for you. They will not see you. In fact, you are henceforth renamed 'invisibles'.
The roads have suddenly started to get a bit busier as I get closer to the epicenter - the Forbidden City - and as it near XiaBan (work is over) time. Some 10 million people must be on the move around me now, and I'm going along with them. As the dustiness picks up, the noise is maddening - the cars are all practically at a stand still - and I whiz by them all. Freeeeedoooom!!!!!! I lick my lips, Igtch, dust. Try to remember not to do that again.
Bon Jovi comes on and I pass an e-bike going 25km/hr or so. I am not even sweating or breathing through my mouth (I try not to, without my mask) and I hear the driver yell "Sky!!!" which means, 'Oh my god!'
"Sky, sky sky!!!! A foreigner on a bike and they are fast!!" Oh the Chinese are so darned talented at pointing out the bluntly obvious. "Thank you," I say. I am going to give myself one point on that one... you would too if you dealt with "Helllooooo, Laowai, waiguoren?" Etc all day long. It's enough to make you wanna drop kick a split-pantsed baby the next time you see they 'spitting-and-squatting' parent light up a cigarette in the middle of the grocery store while their child pees in the cookie isle.
Deep breaths.......
A car makes a right turn into the bike lane and across four others. No check to the left. No signal. After all, I should have seen it coming. Of course I should have, right? "Is this your first day with a car?" I yell, and kick at it with the precision of someone who might have done that before.
"Bang!"
A mild hush envelopes the entire city. Damn. I lost a point there. Maybe even two if there were judges. Another car veers right, through the intersection and across the bike lane. I swerve a bit and there is only one thought on my mind "poker face, poker face, poker face'. Oh yeah, I won that one.
Honk! Honk! Honk! This honk! constant honk! and never honk! ending backhonk!drop to all Chinese cities becomes part of your thoughts after living here a while. But every so often it is obnoxious enough to yet again permeate even the longest-lived vetran. HONK!
"What the heck is that guy going on about?" I look back for a second, annoyed he might be driving behind me in the bike lane and about to give him a piece of my mind (knowing full well that would mean losing a point, but preemptively strategizing that it will be worth it). But I need not worry as this driver is much smarter than the rest and not in the bike lane at all but instead driving seamlessly along the sidewalk. That must be why they make them so wide here.
I start getting lost in my own thoughts. I am getting into the groove. "Is a moment wasted if it has no purpose? But how it is determined whether that moment has purpose or not until after the moment has passed? In which case how can anyone in any moment correctly judge whether that moment is of use or not? Why is it that we feel everything must have a purpose? Or we make sense of some choice, some random meeting, so missed flight, etc? Is it true that a purposeless life is a life un-lived? Or does all life have an inherent purpose and thus putting value or thought into it actually makes it less purposeful or more purposeless?"
Honk honk honk!!!!! Tweeeeet! Woah, wake up, Red Rager.
Hard right. South for a light then only a few more blocks East and I'll be at TianAnMen.
I am a hero for maneuvering through this city without a map.
I am a hero!
Hey that dude's got a mustache!
Woah, a foreigner!
Honk honk! "baby it don't matter if your black or white"
Oh yeah, life is good. And I am ....pedestrian!!!
"AhYaWoDeMaYa!!?!" Guess they aren't invisible after all. And looking before crossing was yet another thing mum's forgot to tell their kids growing up and Moa failed to mention in his little red book. Maybe the Communist Party needs to write a New Testament version. Or maybe I do? Hey, there's a good plan for my Saturday.
I am certainly not a passive cycle commuter and I really do like the colour red - in particular with all it's connotations in this special communist state. The name "Red Rager" was given to me back during The Tour de Chine and I work hard to uphold my worthiness of it while at the same time trying to win the game of "Face" - the rules to which will become apparent in the following soliloquy.
White shoes, red socks, black shorts, black shirt, yellow glasses... as the camera pans in I slowly and coolly put on my red helmet and red gloves, then pop the red panier onto my red bike. I swing my right leg over the seat and straddle my baby... I am now, officially, the Red Rager.
Cue music.
Looking around now I notice the sun is a bit past high noon, and the afternoon traffic has begun. But honestly, did it ever end? It must be at least 330. I deeply inhale and smile as I soak it all in - then choke a bit from the dust and what is fondly known here as 'fog' but is certainly Something that Makes me think there is no 'f' before the OG. But calling it fog keeps us all a little happier in 'we all pretend nothing is wrong on the surface' world. And I spit.
Sometimes one forgets where one is during a perfect moment, then is subsequently reminded with a smack, kick, honk, or in this case, phlegm.
I am, as we speak, getting reacquainted with Reba, my lovely bicycle (did I mention she is red?) as I ride her from my old 'home' to my new one on this fine Summer day in the capital of the PRC. After the preliminary preparations, I flick the switch; an old Bruce Springsteen song starts to rock in my ears; and I start to roll.
Oh sweet, sweet Reba.
I start off at each light way ahead of everyone the second it turns green. It is a race, of course, to the next set of lights. Which I must win and which is apparently not fun to anyone else on a bike in Beijing, as they prefer to play the game of 'who can get there last' instead. But we all, always, end up at the next red light together. Waiting. or, in some cases, not.
Occasionally an e-bike or a car veers in front, thinking I am a typical "slow" bike....thus begins the game of 'face' as I try to educate the masses and stay alive at the same time.
I win a point when I behave the most serenely - the most zen.
I lose a point if I sneer, veer, or brake...let alone if I yell or curse - things a Red Rager must do at times, even armed with the knowledge this behavior will lose her points.
There's a red light up ahead. Michael Jackson's Thriller just came on. Do I stop? I am not even within the third ring road yet. Things are different out here. It's like a whole new frontier. Almost the Wild West in a concrete jungle sort of way but with more dust and less whistling. The cars seem to keep going and so I stop pedaling but don't break. Still red, still red, still red. The bikes all keep going too. And all the people are going across. Ah, it must be yet another green light simply disguised as a red one. Silly me, I should have known.
See, there is democracy in China. Majority rules.
I continue through and think to myself that the right thing to do in a country where there are few enforced laws and no religion is simply whatever-everyone-else-is-doing.
Along with democracy on the roads in China there is also a caste system. To make it simple I will keep it to 4 levels. The top level are, straight-shooter, the busses. Most of which are either double decker or the double long accordion-in-the-middle types. Not only do the busses do whatever they please but they also get the most respect. Even I won't dabble in a game with these upper echelons on society.
The second highest class would have to be police and government vehicles, and the neuveaux riches (porche, audi, hummer, beamer, etc), the latter of which I try to make my focus of "Face", as they are the easiest to win points off of - being that they've usually been driving for one year tops, and still revere the good old tall nose, round eyed laowai.
In the next class, the third class, we have taxis and bikes. I do not consider myself in this class (surprise, surprise). I seat myself snugly in the middle of slow pedal biker and crazy-eyed taxi driver. I might look like a 2 but I act like a 3. And I've got the scars and medals to prove it.
The untouchables in this caste system would be pedestrians. If you have the misfortune of being born unto this class, do not, for any reason, think if any of the higher classes are coming towards you, that they will stop for you. They will not see you. In fact, you are henceforth renamed 'invisibles'.
The roads have suddenly started to get a bit busier as I get closer to the epicenter - the Forbidden City - and as it near XiaBan (work is over) time. Some 10 million people must be on the move around me now, and I'm going along with them. As the dustiness picks up, the noise is maddening - the cars are all practically at a stand still - and I whiz by them all. Freeeeedoooom!!!!!! I lick my lips, Igtch, dust. Try to remember not to do that again.
Bon Jovi comes on and I pass an e-bike going 25km/hr or so. I am not even sweating or breathing through my mouth (I try not to, without my mask) and I hear the driver yell "Sky!!!" which means, 'Oh my god!'
"Sky, sky sky!!!! A foreigner on a bike and they are fast!!" Oh the Chinese are so darned talented at pointing out the bluntly obvious. "Thank you," I say. I am going to give myself one point on that one... you would too if you dealt with "Helllooooo, Laowai, waiguoren?" Etc all day long. It's enough to make you wanna drop kick a split-pantsed baby the next time you see they 'spitting-and-squatting' parent light up a cigarette in the middle of the grocery store while their child pees in the cookie isle.
Deep breaths.......
A car makes a right turn into the bike lane and across four others. No check to the left. No signal. After all, I should have seen it coming. Of course I should have, right? "Is this your first day with a car?" I yell, and kick at it with the precision of someone who might have done that before.
"Bang!"
A mild hush envelopes the entire city. Damn. I lost a point there. Maybe even two if there were judges. Another car veers right, through the intersection and across the bike lane. I swerve a bit and there is only one thought on my mind "poker face, poker face, poker face'. Oh yeah, I won that one.
Honk! Honk! Honk! This honk! constant honk! and never honk! ending backhonk!drop to all Chinese cities becomes part of your thoughts after living here a while. But every so often it is obnoxious enough to yet again permeate even the longest-lived vetran. HONK!
"What the heck is that guy going on about?" I look back for a second, annoyed he might be driving behind me in the bike lane and about to give him a piece of my mind (knowing full well that would mean losing a point, but preemptively strategizing that it will be worth it). But I need not worry as this driver is much smarter than the rest and not in the bike lane at all but instead driving seamlessly along the sidewalk. That must be why they make them so wide here.
I start getting lost in my own thoughts. I am getting into the groove. "Is a moment wasted if it has no purpose? But how it is determined whether that moment has purpose or not until after the moment has passed? In which case how can anyone in any moment correctly judge whether that moment is of use or not? Why is it that we feel everything must have a purpose? Or we make sense of some choice, some random meeting, so missed flight, etc? Is it true that a purposeless life is a life un-lived? Or does all life have an inherent purpose and thus putting value or thought into it actually makes it less purposeful or more purposeless?"
Honk honk honk!!!!! Tweeeeet! Woah, wake up, Red Rager.
Hard right. South for a light then only a few more blocks East and I'll be at TianAnMen.
I am a hero for maneuvering through this city without a map.
I am a hero!
Hey that dude's got a mustache!
Woah, a foreigner!
Honk honk! "baby it don't matter if your black or white"
Oh yeah, life is good. And I am ....pedestrian!!!
"AhYaWoDeMaYa!!?!" Guess they aren't invisible after all. And looking before crossing was yet another thing mum's forgot to tell their kids growing up and Moa failed to mention in his little red book. Maybe the Communist Party needs to write a New Testament version. Or maybe I do? Hey, there's a good plan for my Saturday.
