China, Asia, Climbing and Fixed Gear Bikes

The original article is found on China Daily. But I like it so much that I copied it to be read straight in this blog:

With rainfalls predicted in Beijing on the eve of National Day, ensuring a sunny day for the coming parade is becoming a challenge for the capital.

The Beijing Meteorological Bureau has predicted that rainfalls will hit the capital tomorrow, but may stop on Thursday, Oct 1.

Zheng Guoguang, head of the China Meteorological Administration, said yesterday that the weather for the National Day parade is a challenge with the complicated weather situation.

Meanwhile, China Air Force is preparing to manipulate the weather to ensure a sunny day for the coming Oct 1.

In order to keep clouds, rain and fog away from the sky, the air force has prepared 18 converted transport planes and 48 fog-clearing vehicles with more than 260 soldiers to attend to weather-control measures, Xinhua reported.

So far 10 of the 18 planes have arrived at the Shanxi airbase for preparation for rain reduction on National Day, while the rest are at Zhangjiakou waiting for a commander from Beijing Municipal Meteorological Bureau, it reported.

„The Air Force pays high attention to the artificial weather manipulation and we believe that the more equipment applied, the larger the area we can manipulate and the better weather we can have,“ Cui Lianqing, deputy director of meteorological department in China Air Force told Xinhua.

Transport planes will sprinkle environment-friendly catalysts to eliminate clouds and reduce rainfall, Cui said.

According to statistics from the Air Force for the past four decades, there is a 36 percent chance of low clouds and a less than 20 percent chance of rainfall on Oct 1 in the capital.

The plan said that if low clouds and mild or moderate rains are a possibility on Oct 1, the air force will cooperate with the municipal metrological bureau to spray the catalyst in the sky before daybreak, Xinhua reported.If there is heavy fog near the training airbase for the National Day air parade, fog-clearing vehicles will blow it off. This is a widely-accepted practice at some foreign airports, the plan said.

Since September, the air force has carried out six weather-control experiments and gained good results with 10 fog-clearing vehicles, Xinhua reported.

Due to the bike accident I had 2 weeks ago and my concussion I went to hospitals. First I went to the Chaoyang hospital that got extremely upgraded with the newest equipment before the Olympics. In the emergency area you buy a ticket for 5.5RMB so that you can talk to one of the emergency doctors. Then you just walk to one of them and stand „in line“. Well you just have to shove yourself forward and start talking to the doctor. The consultation „room“ of all the doctors is open so anyway everybody hears whatever you are discussing and some people are very interested in what a foreigner has. The doctor immediately sent me to get a computer tomography (CT) of my brain done. But you first need to pay the 288RMB for the CT – that is so amazingly cheap. After that is done you just go back to the doctor and try to shove yourself in front of the doctor again. As I said my jaw hurts and my ear hurts I had to pay another two times 5.5RMB to see the ear specialist as well as the dentist. The dentist said for the x-ray I would need to come again in the daytime. So the next day I went back to the dentist floor. Again the „treatment room“ with all the doctors is just a huge open room and you can walk up to any of the dentists and watch how he is currently working on somebodies teeth. It was 3pm and the dentist said it was too late to do an x-ray as they are going to close at 3:30pm. Wow, I am not sure how they do the x-ray. The CT took about 30 seconds. But whatever, I decided to try a different hospital.

This time I went to the Dongzhimen Hospital as it is said to be a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Hospital. I wanted someone to look at my in total and not just one section at a time. So here you have to buy a „notebook“ for the doctors to write their notes for you. That was 0.5RMB. Then you have to pay to see the doctor which is 5RMB. Here the doctor is actually in a room, despite the fact that the door is open. He said that I have to go and see a brain doctor instead. But that doctor will only be back tomorrow. So he sent me back down get my doctor ticket refunded. So I got my 5RMB back. The next day I had to pay 14RMB because the brain doctor is a specialist. And there were many people waiting to get her consultation. So I read a book for about 1.5 hours to finally be almost called up. The doctor said with a shock in her eyes „oh, what is this, a foreigner, can somebody translate!!!“ to which I replied „Don’t worry I can speak Chinese“. So she looked at the CT listened to what I said and then said „mei shirrr“ in the typical Beijing dialect. And that means roughly „ahhh nothing“. She recommended that I rather see an ear and nose  doctor to look at my ear and also my nose. So I had to go back down and get my doctor ticket refunded (so I got my 14RMB back) and then buy a new ticket for a standard doctor 5RMB. The consultation room looked like 1950’s and I could not stand watching her treat the girl in front of me who had blood running out of her nose like a waterfall with mechanical devices. When it was my turn she had a look and then suggested that I come back the next day and do a hearing test. So she sent me back down to get my doctor ticket refunded and receive back my 5RMB. So despite the fact that it should be a TCM hospital I ended up in the „Western Style“ part and knew not more than before. So after more than 3 hours and being consulted by 3 doctors (and they wrote things in my notebook) I left the hospital only having spent 0.5RMB.

Then I decided to go and see my favorite doctor that actually runs a massage studio. When I entered he only said „Did you fall off your bike again?“ I had to smile. He sat done next to me, put his fingers on my wrist, closed his eyes and listened to my heart beat. Then he said I need acupuncture and special head massage. My main worry is that I realized that I do not smell anything since my concussion or trauma. And guess what he said? „Mei shirr“ 🙂

I recently red some articles on the new rich society of China. The numbers are amazing. According to China Daily there are 143,000 multimillionaires and 8,800 billionaires in Beijing. Here is the link to the full article.

But on the other hand Beijing seems to be getting more expensive. The ratio of home price to income in Beijing is now 27 to 1, five times the international average according to an article published in China Daily.

The hutong street (Wudaoying) of our bike and juggling shop is really nice. Most of the hutong buildings are still residential and we have nice neighbors around us who had been living there all their lives. But the Wudaoying Hutong is said to be the new cool street of Beijing – like Nanluoguxiang closer to Houhai. So down the street we have seen places be renovated and new cafes and shops and art galleries open up. It is a changing fast. But now they are even starting with the building across. Where will our neighbors go? I think this will turn into a new shop space…

Beijing Natooke: It is great to have a space for hanging out. Friends drop by for a chat when they are in the neighborhood. Interesting strangers also come to the shop and end up staying for an hour or so. People come and try out some of our juggling equipment. Others are fascinated by our tall bike and get persuaded to try it out. Other say they do not want to try it out because it is too tall and looks scary. Other people do their first ride on a fixed gear bike. I like the relaxed hang-out and come and play feeling of our Natooke shop.