China, Asia, Climbing and Fixed Gear Bikes

This is the time of the year when many foreigners leave Beijing. Some of them leave because their internships are over. But this year many have to leave due to visa issues. Trouni had his goodbye party in a cosy Hutong bar. It had a nice upstairs room with chalk and a small door to get onto the roof terrace.

Today I was having lunch at the small hopefully-not-soon-to-be-torn-down family „baozi“ restaurant (well more the small hole in the wall type). As it was a nice early summer day with just a little bit of haze I wanted to eat sitting outside. That was already strange in the ears of the restaurant owner and family. When they found out that I do not want to sit under the sun umbrella it created more fuss. They tried again and again to tell me that if I do not sit inside or not sit under the umbrella then rays of sun will touch me. I tried to convince them that I like that and that is why I chose to sit outside in the sun. Then they tried at make me understand that sitting in the sun is warm because the rays of the sun will touch me and make me hot. After quite some discussion I was able to take a small stool and put it outside in the sun to eat my baozi and jiaozi (two kinds of Northern Chinese dumplings). The whole restaurant was talking about that strange foreigner (probably all thinking how stupid I am).

Just in front of my stool on the street a 3 wheeled bike (tricycle) transporting some metal junk and a taxi stopped. I did not see it happen, but the taxi driver got out and looked a tiny scratch on the side of his back door. So I assume that somehow that was from the tricycle. The taxi driver called the police and soon after a motorbike policeman arrived. By that time it had already attracted the attention from all the people in the restaurant as well as the shop owners of all the small business next door (the „Tante Emma“ stores as the Germans say). The policeman actually said he thinks it was the fault of the taxi driver. This was probably not what the taxi driver was expecting. But the small shop owners were happy and also started all confirming that the taxi driver didn’t see the tricycle and ran into him and therefore it was the taxi drivers fault. I was happy about that conclusion because from where the taxi had stopped it did look like he had cut in front of the tricycle. And I was happy that the crowd was all gathered around the policeman watching what he was doing and confirming his decision and not interested anymore in the foreigner eating quietly her baozi on the side of the street.

This is a tricycle but not the one involved in the accident mentioned above. This was from the last time I moved in Beijing – we did it all environmentally friendly by tricycle.

We just had a 3 day mourning period in China which started on Monday – one week after the earthquake. People were requested to wear black in this mourning period. Some people distributed long ribbons for people to wear. But more amazing was that all the entertainment venues had to close and all the entertainment programs had to be canceled for this 3 day period. I asked a friend to come and do sports and the response was no. This solidarity in this mourning period was unbelievable.

Exactly 1 week has past since the strong earthquake made China shake. For Southern China this was the second catastrophe of 2008 (the first one being the snow storm). Many people lost their lives and unfortunately many children died in collapsed schools. The earthquake also shook Beijing but the damage was minimal. No comparison to the South of China.

In Beijing we just held 3 minutes of silence to show our condolences to the victims and their families. It was held at the same time as the earthquake last Monday at 2:28pm.

And it was breathtaking to look out of the window. People were gathering in big crowds on the bridge crossing the ring road. The traffic that was flowing freely on the 8 lane ring road with the 4 lanes parallel to them suddenly all stopped at 2:28pm and you could hear horns everywhere. All cars and bikes stood still for 3 minutes in silence. I hope that the donations we made will help the families of the victims return to a normal life.