Thoughts on China

On Tuesday (2007-10-09), I wanted to buy a bicycle. There were two shops near me. I briefly looked around the first one and didn’t see anything that suited my fancy. The second shop, Giant, had just what the doctor ordered. With my limited Chinese, I was still able to let the salesman know that I was only going to be here for a week and wanted the cheapest bike he had. He directed me to the Y348 ($45) model and he put on <<<a bell>>> for (Y10 more). I plan to resell it when I leave Beijing. I had already talked to a lady on the shopping street that was interested in buying a bike. When I got back to the hostel, one of the workers expressed an interest, as well. I won’t have time to put it on China eBay, but I should be able to recoup about Y200-250, making the week rental that much cheaper. Plus, it is far superior riding my new bike to <<<the ragged one>>> the hostel had for rent at Y30 ($4) a day.

Traffic in Beijing

Most people would be scared to death to ride a bicycle here, because traffic is seemingly chaotic and, unlike Tallahassee where one or two people go through after the light turns read, Chinese drivers pretend those cars are broken field blockers and they are the running back! In the meantime, they are coming into bicycles that have started across and the oncoming traffic, which honks in disapproval. If there’s an open space, people treat it as they would the last seat in musical chairs.

The amazing thing is, though, that I’ve only seen one accident in my time here and that was one that had nothing to do with the aggressive driving. You just have to be vigilant that people may be coming around you from behind on either side and not make sudden moves.

Overall, the chaos works extremely efficiently and the overall motion of traffic is like a dance, with cars, the double long “accordion” buses, bicycles and pedestrians all playing chicken a million times a second, without the crash you would think has to happen. I’m sure they do happen, but I haven’t seen the signs that on has taken place recently and I have traveled quite a bit here so far.

Unlike Tallahassee, where when the light turns green you may wait for a few second while the lead driver yaks on their cell phone, here everyone would simply drive around them. It’s like the traffic you see in the US in silent movies, if you know what I mean.

But, there is always a complete lane designated for bicycles. It is definitely the best way to get about the city.

Ring Roads

Beijing is laid out in a N-S-E-W grid, which makes it extremely easy (if you have a sens of direction and/or a compass) to get around. In addition to this grid, there are concentric ring roads that allow you to travel diagonally. Most things of interest to travelers are within the 2nd ring road. The 3rd ring road would be equivalent to Interstate highways that turns into 3 digit numbers and circle the city,