New Wheels, Old Deals

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YES!! I have the POWER!

I have finally obtained a set of wheels with which I may navigate the illustrious city of Jining!

You can see the picture of it over there, faithfully docked in the walkway.

It's not mine. Actually, it used to belong to a coworker, but he took off after summer term and left the bike sitting in the back room at school. I was awarded my Octoberly mooncakes and a 5kg tankard of cooking oil, and having no other way to get them home, I simply put them in the bike's basket, took the keys, and sailed on home.

You don't really forget how to ride a bike, but when you haven't ridden in five years and have 11 pounds of oil klonking around in the basket beneath your handlebars, steering becomes really, really difficult. Especially when surrounded by millions of Chinese cyclists all trying to run you out of the way. Towards the end, I had to hop off the bike to cross the walkway without creating a collision.

As I stood there, at the crosswalk in front of my house, waiting for the lights to change, the good citizen standing next to me caught site of me--a laowai with a BIKE--and saw fit to stare at me. Relentlessly. I saw fit to stare back, straight in the eyes, until it became so ridiculously awkward I had to look away. I fixated on watching the timer count down the next twenty seconds, and still his undaunted eyes had not moved from my form. The light changed to green. I stood still waiting to see if he would notice, and still his eyes did not move. The green light ticked off 15 seconds, and the opposite pedestrians reached our side of the road. Then, and only then, did he come to; after I was certain he was going to move, I followed him across the road wheeling my new bike with me.

And actually--this is a pretty normal occurrence for me here.

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