existential struggles in greater China and southeast Asia
Through the years there have been several attempts to establish a public bike rental system in Beijing. Â They’ve all been abject failures. Â I haven’t investigated why they failed, nor did I ever use them.
When I was last in Beijing in May, I noticed that new docking stations for public bikes were popping up, and today I saw one that had some shiny new bikes docked.
Chinese people celebrate the harvest season and the brightest full moon of the year on the fifteenth day of the eight month of the lunar calendar, which falls on September 22 this year. Happy mid-autumn festival! Time to eat moon cake!
It’s been a few weeks since I last posted and I owe you an explanation. I’ve been spending some time on another “project,” one that, if successful, will have a much more widespread (albeit weak and indirect) impact on environmentalism in China than this simple little blog. In any case, I’ll let you know if it comes to fruition.
On to today’s post. I experienced my first bike accident in Beijing today. Please don’t weep or gnash your teeth in sorrow. With the exception of a slightly bruised scrotum, I’m fine and nobody else got hurt either.
This morning, I was cycling to the neighborhood vegetable market along an alleyway that I travel every day when the collision occured. Here’s a diagram I drew depicting what happened:
