Biking in China in the Rain
I am currently in the city of Dinghai on the island of Zhoushan, a few hours away from Shanghai. I am visiting Mary and revisiting the city where I first started my trip in Asia almost seven months ago, a fitting close to my travels. She teaches during the day and I have only myself and the city to turn to for entertainment.
It has been raining for two days straight here, and yesterday I decided to brave it and explore the city a little. The only raingear I have is a one-use plastic poncho in a stark traffic orange with a picture of a bug on the back. To guard against the elements I also wore black and white cow mittens and a clear plastic visor that I found in Mary's basement. It says "SPORTS" on the front, and the visor height is adjustable.
To my surprise and pleasure, mounted on a bike in poncho and visor, I did not attract the stares of onlookers- for the first time since I've been here. Relatively with-it looking Chinese families will put down their food and watch me, open-mouthed, when I walk into a restaurant. Usually they are waiting to see how I handle my chopsticks, but other times it seems to be for the sheer spectacle of a white guy in their midst. But on the street in day-glo orange and a covered head, I just fit in with the crowd.
Most people ride a bicycle or a motorbike in Dinghai, so when it rains everyone pulls out huge tarp-like ponchos that cover their bikes from handlebars to the rack over the back wheel, rising to a head hole and a hood in the middle. And everyone seems to have their own distinct hue of raingear, so that waiting at a stoplight can feel like stepping into a TV test pattern. Some of the higher end models of poncho have a clear plastic window at chest height, so that the cyclist can see through it to their hands on the handlebars, and so that children who are squirreled away in their parents' laps can see out. I saw one mother bringing home her daughter from school. The mother wore brilliant pink and while she worked away on the bike, her daughter sat on the rack over the back wheel, sideways, in a blue poncho with silver stars.
I rode out of the city, up through the hills to a reservoir surrounded by tumble-down farmhouses. A woman passed me on a motorbike with her poncho sailing out behind her, looking like a fluorescent witch mid-swoop. I was amazed at how quickly the city turned into countryside, with little pathways climbing up off the road to precarious shacks and tiny squares of tilled soil. The whole valley smelled like it was fertilized with human waste, which may not be an exaggeration according Mary's account of the city's public toilets.
The other side of the valley drops down the sea. The coast is choked by industrial behemoths, oil rigs and great cranes and dry docks and naval bases. The seawater is brown and the air is smoky. I was almost run off the road on my way back to Dinghai by a massive front-end loader with tires taller than I was, carrying what looked like two tons of iron filings in its bucket.
It's still raining now, and some of the romance of the rain has waned after I came home from my journey with wet feet and a headache. But I sit at the window and it feels like a revelation after four months in Thailand without a single drop of it. I can hear it on the tin of the porch roof when I'm sleeping and it's a comforting sound.
It has been raining for two days straight here, and yesterday I decided to brave it and explore the city a little. The only raingear I have is a one-use plastic poncho in a stark traffic orange with a picture of a bug on the back. To guard against the elements I also wore black and white cow mittens and a clear plastic visor that I found in Mary's basement. It says "SPORTS" on the front, and the visor height is adjustable.
To my surprise and pleasure, mounted on a bike in poncho and visor, I did not attract the stares of onlookers- for the first time since I've been here. Relatively with-it looking Chinese families will put down their food and watch me, open-mouthed, when I walk into a restaurant. Usually they are waiting to see how I handle my chopsticks, but other times it seems to be for the sheer spectacle of a white guy in their midst. But on the street in day-glo orange and a covered head, I just fit in with the crowd.
Most people ride a bicycle or a motorbike in Dinghai, so when it rains everyone pulls out huge tarp-like ponchos that cover their bikes from handlebars to the rack over the back wheel, rising to a head hole and a hood in the middle. And everyone seems to have their own distinct hue of raingear, so that waiting at a stoplight can feel like stepping into a TV test pattern. Some of the higher end models of poncho have a clear plastic window at chest height, so that the cyclist can see through it to their hands on the handlebars, and so that children who are squirreled away in their parents' laps can see out. I saw one mother bringing home her daughter from school. The mother wore brilliant pink and while she worked away on the bike, her daughter sat on the rack over the back wheel, sideways, in a blue poncho with silver stars.
I rode out of the city, up through the hills to a reservoir surrounded by tumble-down farmhouses. A woman passed me on a motorbike with her poncho sailing out behind her, looking like a fluorescent witch mid-swoop. I was amazed at how quickly the city turned into countryside, with little pathways climbing up off the road to precarious shacks and tiny squares of tilled soil. The whole valley smelled like it was fertilized with human waste, which may not be an exaggeration according Mary's account of the city's public toilets.
The other side of the valley drops down the sea. The coast is choked by industrial behemoths, oil rigs and great cranes and dry docks and naval bases. The seawater is brown and the air is smoky. I was almost run off the road on my way back to Dinghai by a massive front-end loader with tires taller than I was, carrying what looked like two tons of iron filings in its bucket.
It's still raining now, and some of the romance of the rain has waned after I came home from my journey with wet feet and a headache. But I sit at the window and it feels like a revelation after four months in Thailand without a single drop of it. I can hear it on the tin of the porch roof when I'm sleeping and it's a comforting sound.
posted by DMF at 11:00 PM
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