I was riding my EBike the other day and I saw a friend standing on the side of the roadway waiting for a taxi. I stopped to chat to her and offered her a lift.

If you have never been to China, you will not know how prolific the use of 2-wheeled and 3-wheeled vehicles is! As the song goes, “there are 9 million bicycles in Beijing, that's a fact, it not something to deny...and they’re sending all my love there is to you!”

The bicycle, and now the EBike (an electrified mini step-through scooter) are everywhere in the city and country and despite the adoption of a million cars a month in China, remain the main source of ’local transport’ for most people.

So, from childhood, Chinese people become adept at ’staying in’ wobbling bicycles. One tactic they employ is a sort of “open bearhug” of the rider, leaning forward onto the riders back and limply linking their shoulders into the riders midriff and lying their face sideways into the upper back - ready to tense up for a good grip in the case of a near-miss with a bus or lamp-post. 

The other common perch (for ladies in short skirts and qipao) is to sit ’side-saddle’ behind the rider and just ’balance’, ready to launch themselves from the bicycle at any sign of trouble!

The effect of this is that the passenger is not looking forward on the bicycle but rather at a 90 degree angle to the right of the rider’s vision!

So I was zipping along on the EBike, my friend in ’bearhug configuration’, deftly winding my way through workmen balancing air compressors and panes of glass on their bikes, grandparents wobbling ’his/her royal highness’ home from school and gaggles of factory process ladies riding 5 abreast on the roadway gossiping, on their way home from work.

“Why you do that?” she abruptly asked me.

I was a bit baffled by what she meant so I asked her.

“Why you everytime go across road or nearby gateway, stopping EBike slowly?”, she explained.

“Because”, I said, in my loud and self righteous “you Chinese people have no idea” voice, “I can see other people riding towards me, other cars and buses, other people walking, so I slow down so I don't crash into them! - it's called Defensive Driving".

She pondered for a moment and I felt her take a deep breath...

“That's stupid”, she said, “why you care things beside you? Look people front only!”

Typical, I thought! Another case of Chinese Safety Logic...you are only responsible for the accident you cause, and the guy that T-bones you is responsible for that!.. 

“Huhpf”, I said, “exactly where should I look then?”

“I show you”, she said and then she reached forward and put her hands on each side of my head at the temple with her fingers facing forward! I was like a horse with blinkers! No peripheral vision, couldn't shy at shadows on the side of the road!

We recklessly sped past 2 driveways, and an old woman tottering along the bike path! We weaved and dodged in the peak hour bikes with only a glance at the mirrors and not a full head turn. We were full throttle all the way!

“See, so much better!” she added when we got to her destination - we had caused a multi-bike braking pile-up by spearing into the right curb from the left lane within a 5 meter stopping difference...but that was behind us so we didn't care!

“Ok, thanks!”, she said

“No problem”, I replied, “thanks for helping me become more Chinese!... And much, much safer on the road!”, with associated eye rolling!

“Haha, I can teach you many things about we Chinese!” she said...

Then she added...“You know why you are still single?”.

“No”, I scoffed, sensing some pearl of wisdom from the 6th century was going to come to me! “You tell me!”.

She said, “You keep looking sideways too much, see trouble coming! Just be like we Chinese, look straight and don't worry about side! Look forward, do forward, that is your life - beside always misses you!”

I was taken by her faith in this, but given the weekly road toll in China was around 600 people, I wasn't too sure of her strategy...not to mention the weekly divorce toll! But they are interesting sentiments I might try sometime in the future when I want to recklessly negotiate the bike lane of life!