Today's ubiquity of the bicycle in China has led to the widespread assumption of a cultural inclination of Chinese to bicycling. A deeper investigation into pre-1949 cycle history unveils quite a different image: it seems that economic and modern infrastructural reasons, rather than cultural preconditions, can explain China's development into the bicycle nation of the 20th century.
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Also rooted in the colloquialisms of urban youth is danche (single; vehicle). Originally, it was a synonym for the common single-wheelbarrow. In the 1940s, it appeared in modern youth literature with the meaning bike. Today it is an argot expression for the unhappy bachelor...