Hello.
In sticking with my infrequent updates, here I am three (four?) weeks later to yet again update you on the going ons of my life here in Beijing and hopefully entice you to read the whole thing by providing you with music and visual entertainment. So without further ado:
If you've actually been keeping up to date on the podcasts over the last year you might notice that we jumped form I believe podcast 14 in the previous post to #17 here. This is because I've been putting them together in my spare time and numbering them as I go and it turned out that I liked #17 better than 15 or 16, so it's jumping a couple spots in line while I put 15 & 16 on the back burners for a few weeks.
Life stories
Things have been happening for the last few weeks on a pretty regular basis. This happened, in a big way. Fighter jets, tanks, people marching, fire works, China showing off just a what a huge communist country can do when they decide they want to put on one MFer of a parade. Unfortunately there were rules (see: laws) about foreigners not being down on the main route to see the parade, to the point where police went around to all the apartments that lined Jianguomen Rd (the main road that runs past Tianmen Square, which was the center of the parade route) and put up notices that no one is to be seen looking out their windows during the parade and if seen it is possible that they will get shot by a sniper. I figure it's just a rumor, but I heard this forma number of people from a lot of different running crews. I did watch it on tv though at a friends' apartment while he and his bride to be made breakfast burritos. Bangin? Indeed. I was even able to run down to Gongti Beilu (Worker's Stadium North Rd) and see the tanks making their way back to wherever they go after a parade (army base? Tibet?) and snapped a couple of bad photos on my iphone. Check it:
WOW! Tanks! Them shits were loud, lemme tell you what. The whole parade thing was to celebrate China's 60th Anniversary of the founding of the Peoples Republic of China (i.e. communism) and what says communism better than giving everyone a week off of work? Nothing as far as I know. So while everyone else was on vacation, worked because our school takes some kids on a trip during our fall break and after trying to move 60 kids around last year while the rest of China was on vacation sucked like so many shop vacs, which year we decided to push our break back a week in order to avoid the scramble. So on my vacation I had a whole lot of nothing to do. I ended up just bumming around the city, riding my bike a bit, playing ping pong, going to happy hours, hanging out with the dog, and generally being a huge load. However, the weather during that week was mostly beautiful and I managed to snap a few pictured during a couple rides with that handy dandy lil gadget I call iphone again. So, yes the pollution is pretty bad here, but once you get a bit out of the city and into Beijing's 'backyard' you get a little bit of this:
Yes, that is the Great Wall. (Of China).
Somewhere, about 60k in the distance, is my apartment.I'll try to save the too-much-bike-talk for another post. Before I do though, I just want to bring to your attention something that has been bothering me for a while. There a criminal trial going on in California right now over a 60 year-old former ER medic who purposely braked in front of two cyclists to "teach them a lesson". One rider went over the car and into oncomming traffic, the other went face first into the rear windshield, breaking and nearly severing his nose off of his face. If you're curious you can read coverage here. Now this is all the talk on most of the bike blogs right now. The driver is being charged with assault with a deadly weapon. Obviously, the source I'm reading about this from is pretty biased, and lots of people have been writing in with their stories of being hit by angry drivers with not justice. It's really made me think though (hard to believe, I know). Here I am in a city with something like 9 million bicycle commuters, most of whom are not skilled riders at all, and somewhere around 3.5 million cars (not including trucks, buses, and other motorized vehicles) where most drivers of those cars didn't drive 2 years ago. Now, granted the bikes outnumber the cars here almost 3 to 1 and cars are used to dealing with driving AROUND bikes, but the drivers here are still pretty terrible, worse than most in the US I'd say since pretty much no one here obeys traffic laws, same with the cyclists. However, the rage is avoided here. Here in China, the bicycle is a necessary form of transportation and everyone understands that. In the US riding a bicycle is usually a choice, and understandably so since most things in the US are much more spread out than most other places in the world. Cities sprawl, towns are miles from the next, and the easiest way to get form one place to another is by a motorized vehicle simply because of distance. For some reason people in cars see that vehicle as their right and it's yours too, so why the hell would you choose to make your life more difficult and ride a bike? To some it seems to offend them by assuming that those pesky cyclists think they're better than those who drive. I'll stop trying to pick apart the why of the drivers vs. cyclist rage that exists in the US and get to my point: I feel much safer here. Even though people are worse drivers here, cars move slower. Hell, I'd say most cars top out on the highway at around 45 mph. I heard from a friend that the average speed of a car in Beijing is 19mph, meaning if you're a quick cyclist it takes you the same amount of time to get somewhere as it would in a car. People are also looking out for bikes here, while they most definitely are not in the states. Most importantly though, bikes belong here. I hear a lot of people in the US say bikes don't belong in the street (which is very much untrue since most states declare it illegal for bikes to ride on the sidewalk). I'm going to digress here since I'm probably preaching to the choir here since many of you do ride a bike at least for fun as much as for function and end with a couple requests. Please be careful. Both bikers and drivers. I'd like for drivers to be more careful around bikes, but a lot of the rage stems from bikers assuming the road belongs to them. It doesn't. You have to share it, and so do the drivers. Keep in mind that the way you ride reflects on all bikers and although you may get away with doing something stupid that pisses off some driver, he may take it out on someone competely innocent. My bottom line I guess is something my mom taught me a long time ago: It doesn't matter if you had the right of way if you're dead. Bikers are very exposed and it's easy to forget that on both sides. whew. I'm gonna cut that rant off since it's not keeping with my promise to avoid the too-much-bike-talk.
In other exciting me related news, I met this dude Rob last night who is a director and film editor. We got to talking and it turns out he's making a short film that has some funding from Sony and he asked if I'd like to do some music for it. I told him hell yes I do. The film will be starring Rick Stanning who you can see in the music video below filmed mostly in the Beijing subway system.
The Electric 6 will also be on the soundtrack. Rob also put together an unofficial music video to a Queens of the Stone Age song.
The Most Exalted Potentate of Love from terrible_apartment on Vimeo.
I hope this actually pans out. Rob says there isn't really money to be made, which is cool with me, but that he's gonna enter the film in a bunch of festivals and I gotta say, after watching the two videos above, I'm impressed. I'm pretty excited to hopefully be a part of this in the near future. I'll post updates as they progress.To finish off here, I spent a good deal the last few weeks watching BMX films. Yes I love bikes. Yes I love going fast. But there's so much grace and beauty involved in bmx cycling, and when someone puts together a good film, well it's something worth watching. This first one I got the opportunity to see on a big screen at the Bicycle Film Festival this summer and after further searching found the second one by the same guys. The second one has made me decide that I'm moving to Spain after I leave China, because why not? Right?
Fox Bmx - Andalucia! from FoxHeadInc on Vimeo.
Last things lastly, My friend Maggie is in this band called Hildur Victoria. They're putting out an EP in a few weeks. They're playing a show with Halloween, Alaska and Haley Bonar on November 27th. You should go buy the album when it drops and go see that show cause they are sick live.
I would probably be plugging them anyways since I've got a friend in the band, but I'm dead serious when I say they should be the next big thing to come out of the Twin Cities. After only two shows they're already bumping elbows with a couple of the big local names. Get in on the ground floor while you can cause I expect them to blow up soon.
That's all for this extended edition. Catch you on the flip side.
-B
