observations on biking in china.

china has been added to that list of countries in which the phrase 'oh insert country of choice...' is used as a way of staying sane in response to the multiple situations/circumstances/events per day that just don't make any sense.

here are a few things i have learned/seen in my two weeks of biking in china.

- as far as i can tell, china is a country of people in cars/trucks/buses on foot/bike/motorcycle playing a life long game of chicken. getting stared down by an 85 pound 70+ year old chinese woman is a frightening experience. she won, i swerved.
- the only consistent rule of the road i've observed in china is 'the bigger you are, the more you can get away with.'
- in keeping with this, red lights seem to be viewed as some sort of challenge by truck and bus drivers. red lights mean anything goes. green lights mean proceed with caution.
- it's not uncommon to be nudged out of the bike lane by trucks/buses that don't feel like waiting in traffic.
- it's not uncommon for trucks/buses to use the bike lanes as parking lots.
- i've had to avoid hitting a disconcerting number of unattended children between the ages of 2 and 5.
- i get a lot of attention on my bike. sometimes it feels like i'm in a race. except no one speaks english and no one is cheering me on. they're just yelling at me.
- things i frequently hear are 'laowai!' (literally 'old outsider'), 'waiguoren!' (foreign person) or 'oh! tai gao le!' (oh! too/very tall!). yesterday when i was biking through town a chinese woman who must have been at least 75 yelled, in english, 'oh! you're so tall! like a mountain!' that was unexpected.

somehow, despite all of this, things just seem to work. we all get where we need to go. it's just a bit more exciting along the way.

last night i read this quote about driving in india, and it feels very applicable to china as well:

'in the west, people take everything very personally.

in much of india, we still dont have traffic lights, and our streets are a throng of drivers, pedestrians and sometimes animals all trying to cross each other and only narrowly avoiding each other. drivers honk their horns constantly at each other to alert each other that they are there and to vie for position, but take it far less personally. we know that it is the roads and millions of people trying to live their lives and get to where they are going. our culture reminds us that sometimes life is impersonal. we all are subject to impersonal forces - like traffic.'

more music?

i really like victoria bergsman (taken by trees).

this makes me really happy.

full album out october 7th.

do you name a bike?

will i get too attached? should it remain nameless? why do we always feel like we need to name things? and by we i guess i mean i? i think this is the first time i've wanted to name an inanimate object? if you had a bright red bike what would you name it? do you want to hear my name ideas? i doubt it?

these are the things i think about when i bike in a straight line for a long time.

i bought a bike!

i am now the proud owner of a beautiful new (bright!) red cannondale f6. my plan had been to go with the much uglier, much less conspicuous, white and blue one, but the bike shop didn't have that one, and i figured i need all the help i can get to be noticed around here.

so now i'm in kunming for a few weeks until i leave first for jinghong in far sw china, and then cross into laos. in a rather ambitious fit of inspiration this afternoon (i'm pretty sure i was biking downhill), i've decided to start the bike trip from here. expect my lovely google map to reflect that change in the next few days if it still feels like a good idea tomorrow and the day after. this does mean i'll have to leave kunming a bit earlier than planned since i'm still only on a 30 day visa. oh, i've also added a little icon to the google map that i plan to move as i move, if you feel a burning desire to know where exactly in the world i am, right now.

my short few days in yangshuo were wonderful. i spent the time exploring the countryside on bike and foot. yangshuo is definitely the most naturally beautiful place i've been in china, and maybe one of the more beautiful i've visited in the world. hopefully some photos will make their way up here some day.

and that's it! i'm staying in a great apartment just outside of kunming, started chinese lessons today, and will be biking up every hill i can find in the next few weeks! i hope you are all well - i'll be sure to be back soon with exciting biking stories/puns. take care.

a year and a day in hong kong.

whoops, another month gone.  i'm still in hong kong, but will be leaving a week from tomorrow.  the last month has been really great, although i've been busier than i ever was during the actual grant period.  i couldn't afford the full yoga teacher training (3,500 US wasn't really in my budget...) but i have been doing the morning practices, which means i've been doing yoga 7-9am monday through saturday.  65-70% of you won't believe that i'm actually doing this, but it's been really wonderful and made me even consider the possibility that i'm a morning person.  who knew?

when i'm not pushing the snooze button, i've been teaching about 20-30 hours per week with kaplan.  it's been pretty demanding, but surprisingly enjoyable.  i've learned a lot in the last year about teaching, and am finally reaching a point where i can have fun with the classes, as i feel like i've started to develop my own style of teaching.  

i'm currently living in sheung wan on hong kong island with a friend of mine named julian.  i left my apartment in mong kok this afternoon, which was much sadder than i anticipated.  i've been surprised at how nostalgic i've started to get as i'm faced with my imminent departure.  leaving has led me to realize just how much i've taken away from this year.  

about ten days from now i'll be in kunming and i'll remain there for about three weeks.  during that time i'll start biking up every hill i can find, continue to do yoga (i've been put in touch with some local teachers) and maybe learn some chinese or something.  grad school has become a very real and very exciting possibility in about the last five days, so studying for the gre has been added to my to do list as well.  

that's about it for now.  many of you will have heard this song, but it feels relevant right now.