Following an extended hiatus exploring the geopolitics and security status of China’s energy sector at the end of the Chinese academic year, your gallant correspondent has returned once again to fire away at the idiosyncrasies of life in Beijing and Greater China as a whole. Today, a commentary on the gypsy trail of Chengfu Lu and Yiheyuan Dong Lu, the path pedaled by tens of thousands of denizens of the Beijing “suburbs” (as they are called by the locals) to and from the impromptu sidewalk farmers markets that dot the city’s secondary roads, hutongs and side streets.

Every morning that I wake up to mount my black and rusty Flying Pigeon bicycle and qi on down to old Bei Da has its moment of dreadful apprehension, as I know that outside in the morning humidity and heat awaits a blaring ocean of traffic: cars, buses and trucks, klaxons wailing, barely moving in one lane, while in the other, a flood of electric bikes, motorcycles, Forevers, Giants, and Pigeons fighting for space and jockeying for position behind the Hummers of the Beijing bike scene – the flatbed-pickup style grown-man’s tricycle loaded high with produce, products, office furniture, recyclable plastic vegetable oil containers, or whatever else the nongmin have decided to pile 15 feet high back there. And as often as not, the driver of said oversized man’s tricycle isn’t a man, but a woman, just as rough, just as red-faced and dark from the sun as the rest of pedaling hordes. With automobiles accelerating and bumper kissing on the one side and the masses of riders pedaling along and looking for an opportunity to pass on the other, to get stuck behind one of the nongmin’s pickup truck bikes is the Chinese biker equivalent of being stuck behind a semi on a one-lane highway in the U.S.: it stinks. Yet there’s not much that can be done about it except wait for the opportunity to pass, thumb working the little bike bell just in case the person in front of you wasn’t aware of the throngs behind them.

Yiheyuan Dong Lu is one of a few dozen feeder roads into the city from the agricultural countryside around Beijing. It passes the Summer Palace on its way out past the Fifth Ring Road forking into smaller roads before the Western Hills. It’s out there in counties like Huairou and Miyun that small plot farmers grow vegetables and tend fruit orchards that keep the city in fresh fruit and vegetables throughout the year. Often, migrant workers who have relatives outside the city will bicycle into the city to work in the thousands of construction and day laborer jobs that are constantly on-going in this ever expanding and rising town. Their channel into Beijing is via roads such as Yiheyuan Dong Lu, and the many other like it. So every morning, as I head out into the sun on my way just about anywhere, I join the throngs of farmers, migrant workers and laborer as well as the thousands of students and office workers who ply the gypsy road into Beijing.

Words to Know

Chengfu Lu* City Government Road 诚府路
Yiheyuan Dong Lu* Summer Palace East Road 颐和园东路
Hútong Lane, alley 胡同
Qí To Ride 骑
Běi [jīng] Dà [xué] Peking University 北大
Nóngmín Country person, peasant 农民

* The name of a road in Haidian District, Northwest Beijing