I am becoming a connoisseur of bike share bikes! When it’s time for me to go for a ride, I peruse all the spots where they are parked. As you can see, they are lined up in many different places. They come in three different colors: turquoise, yellow and blue. The color signifies which digital payment system you can use to rent them. The turquoise and yellow ones can be rented with WeChat only, which I don’t have. The blue ones are rentable with Alipay, which I do have. So I can only ride on the blue ones. The blue bikes are also the most rare, so I sometimes have to go hunting for one.

There are people whose job is bike shuffling. The job of a bike shuffler is to pick up bikes from popular places where they are left, and move them to popular sites where they will be rented. In the pictures, you can see the small three-wheeled vehicle that the local bike shuffler uses to shuffle bikes. It’s usually stacked higher than you see there. He’s already removed at least 6 bikes from the stack!

On Saturday, I had the sweetest bike ride on a Cadillac of bike share bikes. I lucked into this one. What made this bike so nice?! The seat was nice and high. The brakes worked very well. The bike had no wonkiness. I have ridden bikes that have: rubbing wheels, chirping pedals, broken brakes, a super-low seat and even one bike with misaligned handlebars that were turned 30 degrees to the left as I rode straight.

Anyways, I took this bike and rode to Beihai park. That’s the park that I went to a few weeks ago with that youngster friend, Jingyao, who loves soccer. I enjoyed the park so much, I decided to go back on my own. I rode the bike 6 miles into downtown and it was quite a nice ride, and of course, I rode back to campus too. Beijing is very bikeable. The weather could have been better, but it wasn’t terrible. (It was 83 degrees when I started at 8 am and 93 degrees by the time I got back at 11 am).

When I ride, I ride seriously, meaning that I don’t dilly-dally or go slow. I am the fastest person of any age group on a bike share bike. Not a single bike rider on a bike share bike has ever passed me during my 3 weeks of riding. I just spin those pedals and zoom along.

I was rather fond of this particular bike by the time I got to Beihai Park. It rode so smoothly and had a nice high seat. As much as I liked that bike, I knew that it wasn’t really “mine”. The sad part of about renting bike share bikes is that you can’t just “claim it” as your own once it’s parked. Anybody can rent it as soon as it’s parked. I liked this bike so much that I attempted to hide it. I put it further away from the park entrance and “hid” it behind some super-old and very crummy bikes in hopes that no one would notice it and I could claim it an hour later when finished my walk through the park.

You probably can predict where this story is going. My lovely bike had been claimed by the time I returned. 😦 The bike I had for the return trip had an annoyingly low seat, even in its highest position, and I felt like my knees were knocking up against my chest.

The park was just as lovely as I’d remembered, with beautiful wide walking paths with trees forming an arch overhead.

Curious things that I saw at the park:

–> A man stretching — not just any man, an old man. Stretching in public is very common among the Chinese, especially the seniors. They like to stretch their hamstrings. On fences and gates and benches and walls and railings. It’s a regular thing here. I couldn’t get into that position if I tried. I can’t even touch my own toes, let alone put my foot up at shoulder height. It’s ludicrous that he can do that. And, more amazingly, it’s perfectly normal to do out in a public park.

–> A group of women dancing tradition Chinese dance, just to the side of one path in the shade of the trees. It was lovely to watch.

–> Another group of 7 or 8 senior women doing aerobic exercises together in a circle, talking non-stop. I sat and watched for ten minutes or so. It looked like a lot of fun, not the exercises so much, but the togetherness. They seemed to be enjoying each other’s company. And I was looking for company. So I took a deep breath and walked over to them, making motions to ask if I could join them. They welcomed me into their little circle and I did the exercises along with them. It was very sweet. They didn’t speak much English, except the leader who proudly counted “1, 2, 3, 4” in English, just for my benefit.

I struck up a “conversation” with the woman next to me (using Google Translate) and I told her I was a visiting professor from Cornell teaching at China Agricultural University. She told me about her group: they are all retired and know each other from work. They said they are doctors, nurses and staff members. It was nice to be welcomed into their group, even if it was just for a short while. We took a selfie together when it was time for me to go.

My ride back to campus was uneventful, except for the bicyclist I spotted pulling a metal trailer with a grandmother and her grandkids! That is definitely something you would not see in the States. I loved it! Maybe when I am that age I can get somebody to pull me along just for the thrill of the ride.

Back on campus, I saw some more interesting sights: Graduates playing basketball in their graduation gowns in full sunlight when it was 93 degrees. They seemed to be having a lot of fun and didn’t appear to mind the heat.

Then I saw the delivery truck delivering vegetables to one of the major dining halls on campus — a dining hall that serves at least 5000 meals per day. Note the sacks of fresh veggies being unloaded from an old VW bus, onto an ancient had cart up a set of 8 stair steps. Very curious.

Half the fun of eating here is the process of discovery. Andy asked me after my first week, “So tell me, what kinds of things you are eating?” My response was, “I have no idea what I am eating.” I don’t know the Chinese or English names of any of the dishes I eat (except for Kung Pao chicken, which I do recognize.)

Discovery of various new foods was the theme of last week. For instance, last week I ordered my breakfast with the usual point-and-hoot method. It was a rolled up flatbread, but with a something inside that I couldn’t see. The bread part was thicker than a tortilla or a wrap, and it was flaky-looking. The fun part was that I had no idea what was inside. The question was: What will I find when I open it up!? It was a hot dog and a fried egg with a piece of lettuce. It was quite yummy!

If you look closely in the photos above, you’ll also see a metal bowl with a liquidy something. That’s my new favorite breakfast food — millet porridge. I like it so much that I have learned how to say it in Chinese:

Xiǎomǐ zhōu  小米粥

“Xiao” means “little”, “mi” means “rice” and “zhou” means “porridge”. Phonetically you would pronounce it “see-ow-mee joe”. Literally, it’s “little rice porridge”.

I like asking for it by name so that I don’t need the point-and-hoot method of food ordering.

I told my students in class today about this favorite food. I pronounced it for them and they gave me a round of applause!

Recently for lunch, I chose a round fried ball of something. The outside was covered in brown flakes. It’s kind of neat to sample something and know that there would be a surprise on the inside. I discovered that it had sweet bean paste on the inside. Again, very yummy.

I am getting quite good with chopsticks. One of the dishes that I really like is boiled peanuts (see above). I have gotten skilled enough to pick them up one by one with chopsticks. It’s good practice.

A student gave me a bag of mangoes three days ago. omg, they were the best mangoes I have ever eaten. I ate three at a time.

I have been very diplomatic as I write about the food in my blog. However, there is one dish that I really don’t like. I have even given it a descriptive name of its own: Chainsaw Chicken. Suppose that someone hands you a whole raw chicken. Then they hand you a chainsaw. They explain the culinary rules: you have to cut the chicken up into bite-size pieces using only a chainsaw. That’s it. No knives and you can’t use your fingers, except to throw away every piece of chicken that miraculously ends up boneless. One extra-strict rule has to be followed: the dish can only include chunks of chicken meat that have random bone pieces in them. Once the chicken has been completely obliterated, they cook it in hot sauce. I unsuspectingly chose this dish during my second week in China because I didn’t know any better. As I was eating, it felt like a lesson in chicken anatomy as I discovered bone bits in every bite: Oh great, that’s a piece of spine. Hmmm, this must be a chicken femur bit. Ah, the delicacy of chicken wishbone fragments. (Sarcasm here.) I ate about three pieces and gave up because it was so unpleasant. Now I know to steer clear of that dish, as well as its sibling dishes: Chainsaw Fish, Chainsaw Pork and Chainsaw Beef.

The end of my time in China is coming quickly. I leave on June 30, which is just 10 days away. Wish me well for tomorrow… I will be giving my final lecture of the course! I expect that it will be a bittersweet moment.