Photos of a Beijing commute
 

I've seen photos of bicycle commutes from around the world, and felt that it was time to make my contribution. My commute is a short one -- 15 minutes each way on a normal day. The pollution today was terrible, so I decided to take it very slowly. That had the advantage of making it easier to take photos. The commute is hardly as impressive or beautiful as others I've seen, but I hope it's interesting in its own way. I decided to start taking pictures 5 minutes in, which meant I didn't get photos of my neighbourhood on the way out. The photos at the end, taken on the way back, fill in these missing bits.

Argh. I tried to post the photos here (hosted on my own server), but there are too many and the forum won't let me :mad: ... So click here instead: http://www.brezhnev.net/2006/04/10/62.html.

nice! i hope one day we run completely outta oil and there are that many bikes here in the usa!!:D :) :eek: :D nice pics!:)

awesome pics =)

I suppose that there are many more bikes than cars, how come the pollution is still so bad?

Is it industry, or a combination of cars and industry? or location?



Then you'll have to lube your chain with Mazola !! :eek:

Glad you enjoyed them!

There are probably more bikes than cars, but there are still a lot of cars -- the city's population is about 15 million, and the traffic jams are unbelievable. The real problems in addition to cars (you get really smoky trucks, too) are coal-fired powerplants, some industries, dust thrown up from construction sites (especially in the massive construction run-up to the Olympics), and the city's location near expanding deserts to the north-west. The construction dust is probably an even bigger problem here than in most other places, since the soil is so dry. We had no rain, and only about 4 inches of total snow between November and late March.

oh god, that soup is air ???

:lol:

I laugh, you laugh, I die a little bit inside.

I like these kinda threads. Very entertaining. Everyone probably knows but me, but what are you doing in Beijing? Maybe I'm just being stupid and you're chinese but I'm just curious.

On another note...I have two co-workers who are married to native chinese women. They can't understand why I love my bikes so much and I can't understand why they hate bikes. Neither one will go with their hubbys on a simple bike ride.

Super-cool! I enjoy biking vicariously.

Thanks. That was enlightening. Funny how we have these ideas of other places. I had this vision that Bejing was just full of bikes and everyone commuted on them. Your pictures show alot of cars.

I'd be surprised if everyone knows why I'm in Beijing, since I'm still pretty new on these boards. No, you're not stupid, and I'm a Canadian studying Chinese (Mandarin) at a university here while looking for work and trying to figure out what to do with my life (when I'm not riding) :).

As for your co-workers' wives, it's fairly easy to understand their point of view if they're from mainland China. *Everyone* here has a bike, and people don't really view it as recreation or exercise. Not something to be enjoyed, just a tool to be used, and not even taken care of. Most people would probably jump at the opportunity to have a car if they could afford one (and more and more people can afford them). At the high end, some shops are starting to pop up selling the idea of expensive, exclusive racing bikes as a luxury item. But as a method of day-to-day transportation, the car is much more prestigious.

Now, if they're from Taiwan or Hong Kong, I'd have a harder time explaining it... Hong Kong's geography means bikes are generally impractical, so there's no particular reason there. I don't know enough about the transportation situation in Taiwan to comment on that with any certainty. Maybe they just plain don't like bikes!

I think your mental picture would have been pretty accurate about 10-15 years ago. The 4th ring road that I cycle along didn't exist in its present form until about 3 years ago. 5-10 years ago, the area I live in was agricultural or close to it. In the year and a half I've been here, the changes have been huge. Whole neighbourhoods have been razed to the ground and replaced with gleaming office towers. I've started to see graffiti on the sides of the buildings in my neighbourhood saying "We won't go". A worrying sign, since the area I live in really has character and a great sense of community. But that's progress, right? Right? :(

It's now 10:40 at night, and I can hear the 24 hour construction sites nearby going nuts.

Edit: My mental picture of Minnesota is entirely informed by the movie "Fargo". That about right? :D

I should probably add that since these were taken around 10:00 in the morning, it was well after the morning rush hour. There would be a lot more bikes between 7:00 and 8:00.

China is on the pivot of a great revolution, both in the form of government and industrial.

Ya sure, you betcha. :rolleyes:

Maybe not quite that many people with Norwegian accents.

Props to you for commuting in probably the worst air quality in the world. Can't even see any blue in that sky...

Doesn't seem like many (any) cyclists wear helmets in Beijing.

Nice pics, thanks for sharing. I need to do that for my ride, which is boring to me but someone might like it.

I have not yet been to Beijing, (I hope to get a chance to go) but I found this statement very true on my visits to Hangzhou... and I was instructed by my fellow engineers/hosts to avoid looking at drivers while I crossed the street on foot. Very strange practice... avoiding eye contact while hoping to not be hit.

The lack of auto ownership currently is a huge asset to a country that has not built parking lots and parking garages... as evidenced in one of your pictures. I know that the area I was in while in Hangzhou was an all new industrial area not very close to the heart of the city, and yet all the buildings were located quite close to one another and did not have room for parking. Behind the buildings were hundreds of bicycles stacked together... but there simply is not room for everyone to drive. (or rather, to park)

Engineers visiting the United States find that they can easily get a California drivers license, even though they do not qualify for one in China... that tells me getting a license here is way too easy... especially after watching these guys drive here.

I have been to China twice... have not seen a single helmet either time. But I have seen a bunch of very practical clothing for rainy day riders.

The OP mentioned that the pics were not of rush hour... belive me there are more people moving on foot and bike than by car... at least where I visited in Hangzhou.

In the early mornings one would see about cyclists about 3 or 4 deep along the side of the road in a steady flow... like one huge slow continuous peloton. No one rides "fast," the pace might be about 8MPH or so. I never saw 20MPH riders like those on the US streets.

Great stuff. How do they react to your saying eh, at the end of the sentences? Eh?
Lots of Norwegians here in the little fishing village that I reside. Norwegians with a bad Boston accent.

Great photos! The streets look really clean.....I like the mural around the secondary school. Thanks for the photos

This brings back memories. I've been there many times, and am scheduled again for next month. Great photos!

Regarding air quality: I have never ever seen it better than in these photos. Once we had some Chinese chaps over to Melbourne for training; one day they were enjoying a break outside, and they were staring at the daytime moon. One asks, "Do you ALWAYS see the moon here??" Turns out they have never seen the moon in the day!! :eek: At the best of times I have trouble seeing the sun there :eek: :eek:

great pictures! terrific, informative thread. thanks a ton. xie xie.

What is this colour "blue" of which you speak? :D


As genec pointed out, there are very, very few helmets here. I think it's a holdover from when everyone was riding together at about 10km/h, with no cars to watch out for.


The sound "eh" can be used in Chinese too, though not quite in the same way. But really I've lived outside of Canada for a large chunk of my life, and never picked up on the Canadian usage that much in the first place, eh?


Thanks and you're welcome. The mural is much bigger than what I could fit in that photo, but I was out of space on my camera by that time. It's pretty much what you would expect -- Study hard, promote education, work together, that sort of thing.


Bu keqi!