Getting Around in Beijing

Rad, bad, and dangerous to know

As I have mentioned before, I am NOT here on some swanky ex-pat package and in my 18 plus years I never have been. I don't get a car and driver, and I can't afford a car. In fact, my respect for Beijing traffic being as high as it is, I didn't even have a bicycle the first fifteen years. Then I moved onto a university campus, stuck straight in the middle between the major gates, and I found I had to have a bike. First of all, taxis were not, at that time, allowed to enter, so I had to be dropped off with all my shopping and hike into the campus, gallon jugs of milk cutting off all circulation. Second, visitors who are too much of a pussy to bother to learn a few words of Chinese had to be picked up at the gates and escorted in least they get lost. No laughing, here--I have field phone calls from frantic would-be visitors who sobbed, "Tell the cab driver where I am! Tell the cab driver where I am!" to which the reply, "Uh, well, where ARE you?" seemed incendiary to say the least. Third, I developed plantar fasciitis AND a bone spur in my heel at the same time and gained about 40 pounds in a month from the combination of lack of activity and heavy-duty steroids shot one agonizing cubic centimeter at a time into the ball of my foot. A bike meant freedom and some mild cardio and it felt wonderful to feel the moist air ruffle through my badly cut fringe.

However, not all visitors have a bike of their own, and Lulu found herself, more than once, either in the driver's seat of her tiny bike, or perched daintily on the back. This is a photo of our friend The Rose with Lulu in the back. They are pretending to flash gang signals which are, perhaps, really gang signals in the Emerald Isle for "Where's me fewkin' pint, laddie?"

Hint: if you DO have one of those great ex-pat packages that come with car and driver, remember that your driver is NOT a baby-sitter and he gets time off. And for God's sake, when he attends his weekly English lesson, let him finish the damn lesson before you call  and ask him to buzz you over to the other side of the compound where you live. It's always the ones who interrupt their driver's lessons who complain about how bad his English is...