Beijing's Greatest Extreme Sport

Yesterday I briefly mentioned the chaos on the street that I experience everyday as I bike to Wudaokou. This hot spot intersection in Beijing is known for its young crowds and liberal foreigner students that attend dozens of nearby universities such as Peking University, Qinghua University, and Beijing Language and Culture University. This commercial area is concentrated with IT R&D skyscrapers (like Google's), high-rise apartment complexes, a slew of bars and restaurants (many being Korean), dozens of English learning centers, KTV halls, Internet cafes, and a small army of street vendors (however it seems their presence is diminishing due to more mafan from the police). I attended Peking University for a semester but now I have three main destinations in Wudaokou: the light rail station, one of the many restaurants for dinner, or my girlfriends bar.

I live 10 minutes from Wudaokou in a fairly new area, surrounded by 3 other apartment complexes. Two dozen 20-30 story buildings is a lot of people, something like 20 thousand residents I believe. There are are two roads that lead to Wudaokou in the south. The one in the East is a large avenue with footbridges, office buildings, bike lanes, shopping centers, and more high-rise apartments. But the more direct route lies to the west of us - known as shuangqing road on the map however usually referred to as hobo street, gangsta street, or garbage street to others. Each name brings up a defining characteristic of this narrow two lane street with practically no sidewalks or bike lanes, creating a hellish passage to Wudaokou which I like to compare to Whitewater rafting down the Colorado.

Hobo street sounds like Houbajia which is the neighborhood that is crammed between shuangqing lu and the train tracks about a few hundred yards back. This area covered by hutongs, shacks, old brick and mud buildings without proper plumbing and shoty electricity houses thousands of lower-class citizens (economically and in the sense that they have no real ownership over the land) that have been driven back to the outskirts of Beijing because of the city's sweeping developments. I've heard stories that all of Wudaokou, outside the universities, looked like this only 15 years ago. Nonetheless, these people siphon out onto this street every day by the masses and they seem unphased by the dangers they face as dump tucks and buses swerve in and out of groups of small children and packs of motorcycles.

The street has been called Gangsta street because of one strip of 25 or so bike shops that sell and repair new bikes and second-hand bikes (all stolen of course..... I'm on bike #6). A round Beijing man runs the businesses and even has power in many locations in the center of Wudaokou. His business practices are said to be brutal, most locals in the area would not attempt to annoy him, his guanxi or relationship with the local police is strong, thus making him the gangsta of gangter street.

Garbage street is straighforward. The streets sidewalks are filled with recycled garbage making its way to the dumps, one being behind my building and as I write this I can hear the banging of metal that never stops. Not only are their mountains of newspapers or Styrofoam spilling onto the street but the three-wheeled wagon bikes that carrying the trash are the main cloggers. They stack crap 10 feet high (impressive really) sometimes with long medal poles out the back (increasing the chances of being shanked riding your bike to work), and they move at the speed of slowness (except for those with a motor but then its just damn scary). I realize the need for this type of work, I just know that there is a more efficient and safer way.

I can write some much about this road because I realize it is an integral part of my stay in Beijing. I've seen crazy accidents, I have heard the invitations of hookers that front as hairdressers, I have smelled the chou dofu (spoiled tofu - a popular but smelly dish), I have played with my life by cutting off speeding cars and playing chicken with garbagemen - I am now intertwined with the chaos.

I have yet to fall victim... today I will knock on wood and hope for the best.