I find city life truly fascinating. I am not your typical
urbanite, for obvious reasons, but I really do love being here in Beijing. A
main reason for this enjoyment is that it is so drastically different from
anything that I have experienced before. Most other states would consider Maine
“cities” to be small villages. Within the average square mile of my state,
there are about 100 (or more) times as many trees as there are people. In
Beijing, I hardly ever see a tree. I also never see the ocean, ratherer I am
constantly swallowed in a sea of Chinese people with the occasional Caucasian
or Black person (who will never acknowledge your existence). It is this urban
phenomenon that I will humbly begin to explain. It will take more than one blog post to accomplish such a task. Many of my crazy experiences with the city life of Beijing have
taken place from the seat of my bike. And by crazy experiences I mean CRAZY
experiences.
Beijing is unlike any city that I have been to before.
Granted my more permanent state of residence gives me a more holistic
perspective, but there are nuances that I gathered early on in my stay. I am
not talking about the language or profiles of the natives, because we can
understand that from the comforts of our living room. A very evident fluidity allows
a city of 13,000,000 people to coexist without utter chaos. We could say that
laws and regulations maintain order in any given urban environment, but that is
not an accurate description of Beijing.
I want to voice a very foreign discovery I made during my
time here. I may come across as slightly naïve, because there is a good chance
it is, but I will say it anyways. For the big issues and laws, the Beijing police
enforce very strictly. However, officials often oversee many of the “smaller”
laws that are created because stupid people do stupid things. Certain traffic
laws or daily-life laws are not consistently upheld, and yet there is a very
real fluidity. This can be easily seen and experienced the moment you walk out
of your apartment building. Here is where my biking stories become pertinent.
I do not easily shy away from difficult circumstance, but I
also do not have a lot of experience cycling. So when you mix you get some
slightly dangerous situations. I could give you numerous scenarios that would
flush out this dangerous paradox. However, neither time nor paper (web page)
will permit such a lengthy description, so I will offer you a single story.
Preface:
We have all seen those hard-core cyclists in New York City who fly down the sides and in the middle of the street. These guys are SOOO smooth. You know them. The ones that hit all the tight gaps, cruise past your taxi in bumper-to-bumper traffic, and always have a smirk of satisfaction on their faces because they know that they made the right choice yet again. I do not have ill feelings towards these pros, only envy because they are much freer than I am in those situations. However, these kinds of cyclists do not exist in my part of Beijing.
Story:
On ERAP, we have multiple schools where our 43 teachers are
distributed. Two of these campuses house the majority of our teachers, and
happen to be the furthest apart. I live and teach at the bigger one of these
two schools. On one fine day, I was biking with some fellow ERAPers to the
other large school. On the way there the weather was beautiful and the brisk
wind was very pleasing. We arrived at the school without a hitch, but on the way,
back was…not ideal for those who are overly concerned with safety.
I had to get back earlier than most so Daniel Lyman, one of
the returners, headed back early with me. It took us about an hour and 15
minutes on the way there, but on the way back we were slightly lost and still
shaved off about half an hour. Ridiculous. That had been a completely new kind
of sore that I could not describe.
Bus Side Note: Like most places in the world, at least
places that I have been to, buses rule the road. Not by law, but by common
sense. “My vehicle is bigger than yours, so you WILL move for me.” I think that
is the exact thought running through every bus driver’s head in Beijing. Therefore,
when you are biking on the side of the road and cars park in the bike lane,
then you must improvise by riding in the street. This can be hazardous to more
than just your health.
Daniel and I were cruising down a very busy road, which is
common in a 13 million-person city, and we come across some rather large buses.
The worse thing about biking along a bus route is that you will pass the bus
when it stops, then shortly after are passed by the same bus a couple of
minutes later. You can continue to do this for miles and miles. On that day I
was still learning the etiquette of this big-vehicle-little-vehicle leapfrog. I
decided that I was just going to go for it.
The bus started to pull out, and instead of stopping I sped
up. No WAY was I going to let this bus keep passing me then stop just a few
minutes afterwards. No way. Therefore, I sped up as fast as my bike and my legs
could take me, but I was not the only stubborn one out of the two of us. I get to a point where I am in between the
outer two lanes, during rush hour, pinned between a huge bus and fast traffic.
Although it lasted for less than a minute, my heart was pounding like crazy as
I was racing this bus accelerating bus to get ahead in the lane.
At what felt like the last possible moment, I pulled ahead
of the bus and secured my spot in the lane closest to the sidewalk. The not so
happy bus driver, who was now going faster that I was, angrily swerved to the
next lane to avoid destroying my bike and me. I was much obliged, even though my safety was
the furthest thing from his mind.
Like most cities, Beijing is like an organism. Different
parts have different roles, and with any major (or minor) components missing, the whole thing can potentially falls apart. However, there is another way things
can be messed up, a process that I am very much involved with. I call it the “Introduction
of Foreign Objects.” Your body attacks such things, but thankfully foreigners are not outlawed in China…but we can complicate things or slow things down. When I
bike I am very much thinking about myself, but there is a niche that bikers fill in
Beijing and my individualistic nature is constantly rebelling.
In other cities,
especially in the States, we have rules and regulations you have to follow. This
makes it easier for us to NOT mess up the system. Just follow the rules, even
if you do not understand why they are put in place, and (hopefully) everything will turn out just fine. However, Beijing’s natural
order of things stem from very deep cultural beliefs, which creates and
maintains an overwhelming desire among it’s people to establish peace with
those around them. In other words, to survive in this city well you must
understand the culture. The biggest unifying factor in China is not a
set of laws, but rather it is a culture that is highly valued among the people. When the Western individuality dogma is imported on a massive scale, it pollutes a very beautiful, communal lifestyle. Yes it isn't perfect, but one would be a liar if they say that our culture is better in every way...but that statement alone creates more introductions
than conclusions. So for now, I am done. 
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