On Biking In China

On our second weekend in Beijing we went out in the blue Buick mini-van to buy bicycles. Tony and the boys thought they'd ride bikes everywhere in the city—to the open vegetable market and Chaoyang Park and the tiny grocery store two blocks down that sold Chinese toothpaste. And before I moved to China, I thought they'd ride their bikes everywhere too. Because riding bikes was what one did in China wasn't it? Every day that I walked that city I saw thousands of one-speed bikes speeding by all the miles of VW Santanas and Jeep Cherokees idling in standing traffic.



But every day I also saw the people riding those bikes almost die of sudden death by collision with Japanese lorries and German Mack trucks and runaway electric scooters...