Brakeless in Beijing

I was biking from the office to meet someone when, in the middle of an intersection, my brake pinched against a spoke, jammed, then splintered off and shot onto the road.

In other Beijing bike-related news, I...well, have one. I am what some may call on my way to settling in - which seems to be something I am constantly doing in my life; whether it's in Ottawa, Shanghai, Beijing, or Pickering, ON. I have a bike; I just bought soccer shoes; I've done laundry, hung it out to dry, and folded it; I know several ways, by bike, to work; and have a mobile chock full of new numbers, which is a telltale sign of a good start, I suppose.

Mundane details like that are necessary. But several more exciting things have happened.

One of the first nights here, Judi and I went up the street to have some Sichuan fish outside, under the stars and in the surge. When we got up past the Wu Dao Kou subway station, the restaurant was doing brisk, profitable business on the sidewalk and the food looked delicious. But just as we were about to sit down, two large military trucks drove up and swerved to cut off the street; men in camo-garb jumped out from the backs of the flatbed trucks, and chaos ensued: men and women ran around screaming as their large tricycles, which were also doing brisk, though illegal, trade in meat skewers and other potentially state-damaging enterprises of street food, were confiscated and litterally tossed into the backs of the trucks; children were crying; and our dinner plans went awry to say the least. The restaurants didn't have licenses for serving outdoor food, though they are presumably both available and costly (I am unsure). The waitresses and cooks, who until then had been asking us what food we wanted, grabbed it all (the food) and ran away to stow it behind the building in an alley way. We did get to eat outside though, eventually - so don't worry.

Another noteworthy thing happened when we were bike-shopping: my first run in with 'Chai', which in India means tea, and in China means "destroy"; it is the Chinese character they throw up on all the buildings they're going to tear down. We went looking for bikes, and where there had been dozens, there was now one, a bunch of rubble, and some empty shops plastered with a large, four foot'Chai' character.

But now, I'll get more personal.

Beijing is a city rife with opportunities to kill oneself. Everyday is an interesting navigation of several accident scenes: as I was biking home the other night - brakeless - a girl lost control beside me after wobbling a bit, and just threw herself over the handle bars - the contents of her bike basket strewn across the road; I stopped, but did nothing, several other men also stopped to help. On that same trip home, I rammed into a three-wheeler and dislodged the "baggage carrier" (the quotations here are because I have no idea what it's called); I yelled I'm sorry, but had to apologize again when, later, the guy riding on the back of my bike noticed a bar jutting out and unnattached to key areas of the bike that it should have been; he almost fell off, and it was welded soon afterward.

The new presence of brakes on my bike has reduced the amount of death I need to circumnavigate, but chances have not dissipated entirely. I went jogging this afternoon and it wasn't smoggy, nor terribly fraught with peril. For this I am glad.

Also, those who thought I was skinny before should see what 46 degree heat in India, and one month of travelling, have done to my body.

Living here is fantastic. Beijing is a vibrant city, and much, much different than Shanghai. The roommates are fantastic, kind, and more than I could ever have asked for; whether it's helping to fix my bike, showing me where to get the best shrimp dumplings, or accompanying me to a concert where the Moscow Symphony Orchestra paired itself, dubiously, with what appeared to be a more operatic Russian Bon Jovi-esque type band, the're always willing to help.

And when you're in Beijing, and speak Chinese at the level of, perhaps, a 4-month-old infant, having friends is more than comforting - it is necessary.

The apartment is also great. The mist (read: fog) cleared the other day, and for the first time I noticed that the two streets that join in front of my window both end in mountains. That was pretty incredible, because I had always known most major Chinese cities as bastions of flatness.

For some reason, I've been reading a lot of anti-theist books. The logic draws me; as well as the way authors write, when they value logic so highly. I read Christopher Hitchens' Letters to a Young Contrarian on the plane, and while in India, I picked up a copy of Bertrand Russell's Why I am not a Christian; now, I'm finishing of The End of Faith, by Sam Harris. All of these are excellent, call-to-arms reads for anyone interested in either leftist, or contrarian, politics, anti-theism, theology (as an atheist or enlightened automaton, not a foot soldier), internationalism, or international politics.

Also, both Hitchens and Harris are hilarious to read whether you agree with them or not. Hitchens\' wit is knife-like, and Harris is so constantly blown away by the foolishness of organized religion that his untempered criticisms are nearly poetic: "billowing clouds of unreason," and "masterpiece of moral blindness" (in reference to Noam Chomsky), and generally language that pairs momentous acts of nature with staggering acts of credulity - I'll make one up now, for example. Um... a "torrential downpour of irrationality," he displayed "an ignorance of oceanic depths," she spoke as if "the sun had set on all thought, reason, and logic, and as if free inquiry had withered into the deserts of childhood fantasy."

Anyway. That's it for now.