Odd Items in Large Quantities

Life is certainly different here in China – here are a few of the odder things we see a lot.

Multiple People on Mopeds – This is one of the more unsafe things we see around town. It is not uncommon to see two people riding on a small moped, which you might see in the U.S. as well. However, it is also not uncommon to see a family of four cruising down the highway on the same size moped. We have seen this with 3 different configurations. One – mom on the back while dad drives with two toddler to 4 year olds standing between dad’s legs. Two – mom on the back holding one child while dad drives with another child standing between dad’s legs. Three – mom on the back holding two children while dad drives. Whichever way you cut it, a VW Santana looks better and better by the minute.

Styrofoam - One of the really strange things we’ve noticed here in China is the shear abundance of Styrofoam. Every day you see at least one or two guys on a bicycle with a MOUNTAIN of Styrofoam stacked and adeptly roped on the back. The height on said Styrofoam pile typically ranges between 8 and 12 feet above the bike, and the width is between 5 and 8 feet. He takes up the ENTIRE bicycle lane and he must keep a keen eye out for low hanging tree branches.

Fires – This is a more recent development as we’ve see two fires in the last week. The first was a fire in a building under construction near Scott’s office. This building will be the tallest (or second tallest) building in the world when completed. Since the majority of the building is glassed in already (except for the very top), it resembled the tallest chimney in the world as all the smoke was billowing out the top even though the fire started on the 30th floor. The second fire was a few days later when, on our way to school, Juliet shouted “FIRE” – we looked ahead and there was a semi-large flame occurring right on the side of the road – we passed and felt the intense heat inside the car as a pile of shrubbery was ablaze.

Mr. Chen Running – Mr. Chen runs a lot – he runs to help us with groceries. He runs to get the car started when he sees us coming. He works very hard for us and we are lucky to have him. However, the most recent running episode was a little scary. On Saturday, we were leaving to run errands. As we were walking outside, Mr. Chen was backing the car down the street (our street is narrow and only one car can fit down it – thus he often will back down to our house). When he got close to the house, he put it in park and hopped out quickly to open the door for Annie and Juliet. However, he didn’t put the car in park – instead he accidentally put it in drive. Thus we had a runaway car rolling down the street as Mr. Chen was running to catch it. Luckily he was able to jump into the driver seat and pull up the emergency break before running into anyone or anything.