Saturday Bike ride

It was a beautiful fall day. Cool weather. Leaves changing. Great day for a ride.

Sometimes I chuckle at the silly things that the Chinese do. But I think the reality is that I am at least as silly. I also think the better part of wisdom is noticing the guy doing something silly right before you were about to do the same thing and changing your course in a knick of time. Sometimes life is a game of inches.

Riding my bike on the side of the road, I came across a simple row of bricks strung across the side lane. This is pretty unusual in Changchun in that the Chinese do not normally put up ‘hazard ahead’ signs or markers. So this made me at least look ahead to see what the warning was for. It looked like the road had a 3 foot section cut out of it and was filled in with gravel. I was on my mountain bike so I thought this would be no big deal. Then I noticed that a mini-bus in front of me had the same idea. That’s when I realized his rear tires were 12” down in the ‘gravel’. That would make the ‘gravel’ freshly poured cement. Now I don’t know how he got his front wheels through the cement, but his rear wheels did not have the same luck. So I locked up my brakes and came to a stop at the lip of the cement. If that van wasn’t there, I’d still be picking bits of cement off my bike.

So now the issue is how you get a mini-bus out of quickly setting concrete. This is where I have to hand it to the Chinese. There are a lot of Hummers, Audi Q7, Porsche Cayenne, Land Rover, and every other SUV made by every automaker in the world in Changchun. But when there’s work to be done, you don’t call one of those pretty boy rides with leather interiors. You call the guy with the Jeep who’s not trying to get other people to do the heavy lifting in order to keep the dirt off his hands.

So this beautiful 4X4 Wrangler with oversized tires rolls up and out jumps a guy who is used to getting things done. I was watching an American TV commercial in the middle of China and the Jeep marketing department never had to pay a cent. It was just the engineers at Jeep that took care of this one. He hooks up the tow strap, engages the 4 wheel drive, sets tension in the strap, and then lets the growl of the engine take over. Even in Changchun, people know who to trust when they need to get things done.

Biking in the hills

I got invited to go for a bike ride Sunday morning. I said yes and then realized it was an invitation to go motor biking. Francois had an extra bike and he and his son were going for a ride. So the 3 of us headed out from their house early Sunday.

Now you might think that we got onto a nice dirt trail right from their house. You’d be wrong. You might also think it would be against the law for two 40 year old whiteys and a 14 year old boy to go bombing through the city streets of Changchun for 5 miles to get to an off road trail. There you would be correct. Francois gave me plenty of instructions though on how to handle this little detail. As we were pulling out of his garage he said ‘follow me. Don’t stop at the red lights. Never make eye contact with any authority figures. And never slow down if someone starts chasing us.” Seemed reasonable enough. I had a helmet after all. What could possibly go wrong?

In the end, we made it to the trail without any official incidents. We bombed around on trails for a couple hours around Moon Lake and then met our families for a little Sunday afternoon picnic. Turns out if you get far enough away from the city and the hovels, it can really be quite beautiful. We were on a bluff looking down across a wide valley with the city of Changchun in the distance. Not surprisingly the city smells a lot better when its 10 miles away. The trees and grass were a welcome change of scenery for the eyes and the ol’ factory.

Of course being china, after we set down our blanket and started having some food. A group of 40 Chinese folks set up shop around the corner and started having a good time. It’s probably easy to be lonely in china, but it is really hard to be alone.
For the picnic menu, the stouts brought some real American cuisine. We had twizzlers. We had peanut butter and crackers. We had flavored goldfish. Turns out American cuisine is not always appreciated as much as you might think. The licorice was deemed ‘without flavor’ and the peanut butter on crackers was described as ‘interesting’. The goldfish were just ignored straight away. Just cuz the other families had fresh fruit and vegetables, fresh baked bread and cheese. They thought their food was better than ours. OK, their food was better than ours. I admit it.

Now, I’ve not been to France yet, but I think I could spend some time there just eating. And drinking. I hear Italians know how to put together a pretty good meal as well, but the only Italian I know is Frank Ardigo and he married an American. Ann’s a great cook, but I’m not sure if that counts as true Italian food or not. I think us Americans have some room to raise our culinary game a bit.

Anyway, in the end it was a great day with motorbikes, families, trees, and dodging buses. It was a great way to say ‘au revoir’ to the summer and get ready for the imminent coming of fall and the cooler weather.

As a final note, when we were out there we found a praying mantis. These are apparently pretty common around here as we see them way more often than we did in Michigan. This is where my education let me down. I've always thought they were preying mantis'. As in the woman preys on her mate after they've finished their business. Everyone said that was strange because in french and german the word for the insect was the same word as praying because it looks like it has its hands folded in a praying position. I told them that was ridiculous and their languages were wrong. And dumb. Turns out I would be the dumb one. Praying mantis. who knew?

The return trip

So the whole family is back in Changchun. I flew back to china in the middle of August. It was pretty uneventful and yes I did bring the nutella. In my checked bag.

The funnier part of the story is that my wife and kids came back at the end of august. They didn't bring anything to the US from China cuz they have plenty of clothes at the cottage. So for the trip back to China, they didn't have anything they needed to bring. Except food. So the airline rules allow you to take two 50# bags on international flights plus a carry-on plus a 'purse' independent of how big the passenger is. My 7 year old son has the same weight allowance as my wife (which I know Brook Burg is trying to change so that each passenger pays by the pound since the cost of the flight is a function of the mass being carried, but that will have to wait for a different post). So my wife packed all the kids bags with food. At 5 passengers, that makes 500 pounds of luggage plus 5 carryon bags plus 5 backpacks. Turns out that's a whole lot of food. Our dining room looked like a bomb went off in a grocery store. Granola bars, boxes of cereal, pop tarts, bottles of wine, etc. . . My kids, pack mules.

The best part of the story (for a dutchman like me) is that when dee landed in chicago, she needed to claim the bags and recheck them. (this is not normal, but she didn't have her passport in GR. she was picking it up from a embassy courier in o'hare. Another story for another blog post) So she has to pick up her 500 pounds of luggage and bring it with the 500 pounds of carryon bags to the check in counter. In china, the little baggage carts are free, but in Chicago they cost $4. So instead of getting a cart for every kid, she got one cart and made the kids pull all the bags that didn't fit on the cart. We call it tough love where I come from. Warms the cockles of my dutch heart.