Road Warrior

The new woman in my life has made me realise I am a menace on the roads and a danger to society and peach vendors alike.

She is an old, cheap ride but I love her all the same. She is Beijing Betty.

I was starting to realise the reality of needing a bike in Beijing. This place is just too massive not to. You need a bike to even get close to public transport, then begins another kind of nightmare altogether. I guess I could brave the busses but honestly, you're sardined in on those and they smell like cabbage soup when crowded.

So now I have Betty. She's probably about my age or a little older, but the harsh Beijing climate has not been kind to her. But she's been around, seen a few things I'm sure. She was a spring chicken when Mao died, was old enough to remember Tiananmen Square but not really old enough to understand it. She's seen this city change. The old alleys (called hutong) be torn down in favour of multi-storey apartment complexes. She remembers when old folk remembered the days when the Empress ruled. They're long gone now, replaced with old folk who remember when the Japanese occupied these parts and the dawn of Communism.

Things have improved here. The city is newer, opening up. Things are booming but my Betty gets older. She's seen this city unfold to the outside world. She remembers when she saw her first foreigner, now they're everywhere. When she was little, foreigners were confined to one area of the city and weren't allowed on the subway. They weren't allowed to use Chinese Renminbi (lit: the People's Currency)but had to pay for things with special Foreigners Currency. She remembers riding past a group of them long ago. They were tall, faded looking and had the overfed look of a Capitalist Roader. I'm sure she's horrified she now belongs to one.


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*Capitalist Roader was the term given during the Mao era to those wanting to open China up to the West and hence, down the Capitalist Road.