Bicycles and monsters

Press, 1 September 1982, Page 21

Bicycles and monsters

By 1

BRUCE ROSCOE

"Watch out! You must be more careful!" my interpreter scolds, as if reprimanding an errant child. Then he takes a tight grip on my arm and escorts me across East Changan Avenue. From the day I arrived in this city, my interpreter has shown great concern for my personal safety, for he believes I am in grave physical danger. “Chairman Mao said we are not heroes unless we reach the Great Wall," I recall him saying, and I detect a sigh of relief on his face, no longer contorted, when we reach the other side without incident. That is enough heroism for one day. he seems to be telling himself.

At least, the foreign guest in his charge has not been run over by the bicycles. Looking out for only cars, which are few, or buses, the foreign visitor to Peking realises quickly that bicv’cles, the Chinese symbol of mobility, are truly formidable traffic, their proud owners gripping the handlebars as if they were spokes of a Mazda RX7 sportscar steering wheel.

A long bus. articulated in the mid-section, which is the form most buses in Peking appear to take, snakes its way around a corner and maneouvres into the outer cyclists' lane to prepare to stop. The bus driver frantically waves back a swarm of oncoming cyclists. The odds run against his success. He is innumerably outnumbered, and the cycling commuters claim as much or more right to the road as any vehicle. The two inner lanes of

most Peking avenues are reserved for cars, and the cars are reserved for highranking government figures, foreign residents, taxis and hotel limousines that ferry foreign visitors to and fro. A frequent New Zealand visitor to Peking says that in 1979 waves of bicycles occupied the full width of the avenues, which the next year were partitioned into car and bus. and bicycle priority lanes. Last year, he says, there was an upsurge in the number of Japanese vehicles on the roads, and this year, he rightly reports, the partitioning has achieved total success.

Before, when Peking joggers were hitting the streets at 6 a.m. or earlier, the incessant tooting of vehicular traffic made it seem as though it were competing with an unskilful rock band for the decibel prize. By law. drivers are now limited to two toots a second, and joggers , rejoice. But bicycle production in this city of a vaguely estimated 8.000,000 is pointing up an “uncorrected contradiction" in the socialist economy, and Chinese journalists are addressing the problem in their vernacular press with much seriousness. • China’s commercial departments are "plagued with unsaleable goods,” according to a “China Daily” report that singles out the bicycle as the principle offender. During the first five months of this year, the report says. 22.73 million

bicycles were produced, while the State Statistics Bureau had projected a demand of "only” 8.84 million a year. “Increased income has allowed consumers to be more selective about goods, rather than grab the first bicycle, fan or tape recorder available," it says. "Thus while there is still a demand for quality bicycles from certain factories, there is a vast surplus of inferior models from other sources.”

Yet Mr Li Zhuqi, writing, in the same paper, argues, that overproduction is an inherent ill of capitalism, not socialism. An economic crisis, he says, “occurs in capitalism amidst tumultuous economic activity. As production increases, a big surplus of commodities is stockpiled. “The need to reduce production creates a large surplus of workers and a drastic increase in unemployment. Hence capitalist production undergoes periodic swings from crisis to prosperity.” But a Chinese Commerce Ministry report defies Mr Li’s logic, announcing that 14 per cent of “common items” such as gas lamps, kerosene stoves and plastic buttons are now considered unsaleable. As with bicycles, these items appear to be enjoying the best buyer’s market ever. “The best bicycle costs about 160-170 yuan (about SUSBO-85). It is called Phoenix (the legendary bird, often featured in classical Chinese literature, that some say

could live for 500 years) and I have a Phoenix)" boasts my interpreter.

If bicycles worry unwary foreigners. cars terrify Peking Chinese. Though cars, because of their more frequent appearance on the avenues, no longer draw the fixed stares of cyclists and pedestrians, they nonetheless generate fear and command respect.

And apparently every foreigner, by virtue of being one. is supposed to own a car. My interpreter seems unable to come to terms with the fact that I do not.

"There are only about 300 cars (more like 3000) in Peking," he says, adding, “But I am not sure, that is what I was told,” in the same way as he qualifies almost every second statement of factual knowledge. Feeling like a monster seated in a monster's chariot. I am being driven along country roads at 40 kilometers per hour — the speed limit. The driver approaches every other vehicle with caution — the bicycles, the old three-wheel combustion-en-gine trucks Of Russian and Chinese make, and the crude three-wheel farm trucks that are belt-driven by an engine perched atop the front wheel, resembling more an overgrown rotary hoe than a truck. The driver bursts into laughter on our return to my hotel. It seems there is an obstruction in the hotel car park. I ask my interpreter what he finds so amusing.

He chuckles a little to himself. “It's that lady, there," he says. “She does not know how to avoid our car.”