Red Velvet Tuk-Tuk
Friday 28 March
After another month of waiting around for taxis over the New Year Holiday, because all the drivers were busy taking their relatives shopping, I recently decided we needed our own transport. Working for an NGO our budget doesn’t run to chauffeur-driven minivans, like many of our friends in the private sector, so we bought a second-hand tuk-tuk for £35. You would probably know it as a “tuk-tuk”, like the motorbike taxis in Thailand, but here it’s called a “san lun che” or “three-wheeled car”, and we call it a “pouss-pouss” because we bought it from French friends and that’s what they called it.
It is not actually a motorbike, I am not that brave, but an electric bicycle with a two-seater bench welded onto the back, upholstered in red velvet for a touch of glamour. It’s a popular form of transport here, especially among the elderly. You often see an old man peddling one, with his wife and several bags of vegetables piled on the bench behind, or a red-faced woman cycling her chubby grandson to school. Several of my French friends use them for transporting their kids around, the Europeans being more adventurous about many aspects of life here than the Americans and Brits. (E.g about giving birth here, but that’s another story). My friend Bénédicte is very enthusiastic about hers, and the sight of her zipping around town inspired me to snap this one up when its previous owner left town.
Although a bargain at 500 yuan, it needed some work before it was roadworthy: not one of the 3 locks worked (engine, battery, storage compartment), the brakes were loose, the seat wobbled and the lights were all dead. These problems were easy to fix but the indicators are more challenging - they only beep when turned on, there is no light or any actual indicator. So you know you are going to turn and perhaps someone cycling next to you might hear the beep, but no-one behind you will.
I took a while to build up confidence driving it, although the controls are a piece of cake, (also there are always the pedals to fall back on if the battery runs low, which is very likely as it only has about 60 minutes of power). It was the other traffic that intimidated me, and more to the point the other rules of the road. While the highway code is fairly similar to ours, the driving protocol is different. Instead of keeping an eye on all the traffic and traffic controls and driving accordingly, drivers here fix their eyes on their goal and head towards it, taking evasive action as necessary. This works well as a system, as long as everyone does the same thing. Like a flock of birds, the crowd of vehicles avoids collisions by paying attention only to their immediate neighbours. I had figured this out by observing and by riding my bicycle around town, but I thought problems might arise if I tried to drive the way I do in the west. So I didn’t even try. My only concession to western protocol is that the boys and I wear helmets, otherwise I just go with the flow. No indicating - the beeping is just a distraction - no slowing down at the lights - someone would probably rear-end me – I just keep pace with everyone else and avoid anything that’s in the way.
So far it seems to be working. My only real difficulty, whether on the pouss-pouss or my bike, is when other vehicles are coming the wrong way down a one-way traffic lane. This happens because many roads have slow traffic lanes for bikes and motorbikes, but people don’t want to go all around the block to cross over into the correct lane, so they cut down the opposite side of the road. But there’s no rule for which side they should pass the traffic going the right way, because they shouldn’t be there in the first place. So if it is just one or two bikes, they tend to hug the curb, and you pass them on their left, but if there are a lot of them and the one-way lane has temporarily become a two-way road, then everyone passes on the right. It’s just that sometimes people don’t decide which is which until the last-minute, and that can be nerve-wracking.
I pay 11 yuan (80p) a month to park in our housing compound’s underground garage, where old Mrs Lin sits watch over a room full of bikes and motorbikes. The room is damp and her tiny living area is separated only by a flowered curtain hung up on a piece of wire, but she has a huge flat-screen tv and the compound cleaners come and sit with her when they have time off. She helps me maneuvre the unwieldy frame out of the gates, but I have to push it up the steep ramp by myself. It’s not an easy exit, but on the whole the pouss-pouss is a success, at least for trips around the neighbourhood. It has given us a measure of freedom.
Sunday 30 March
Yesterday we took a trip to Donghu Park, an ideal pouss-pouss destination. It’s just down the road so no danger of running out of juice, but too far to walk and a notorious dead-zone for cabs. Ethan came with us on his bike, so he got a little exercise and everyone was happy. The boys had fun rolling down the hills and some friendly kids let Isaac fly their kites. From the hill-top we saw a hot air balloon on the other side of the lake, so on the way out we stopped to see what was going on.
It was a wedding, with the guests seated on peach-coloured chairs beside the lake, and everyone who happened to be in the park that day crowded around for a good look. All necks were craned to stare at the balloon hovering above. As it slowly began to lower to the ground we saw a figure in white dress and veil shouting instructions into a two-way radio. The bride was making her entrance. She landed smoothly and clambered out of the basket, sporting a rather lovely pair of white feathered wings on her back. The maid of honour removed the wings and she joined the groom under an archway of flowers. An M.C. cleared his throat into a very loud microphone and instructed everyone to welcome the bride and groom on their happiest day. As we left the park we could hear the M.C. shouting the wedding vows in a hectoring tone more usual at political rallies: “DO YOU AGREE – TO TAKE THIS MAN – FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE – TO CHERISH AND CARE FOR…..etc.
It was the most western-style wedding I had ever seen, with the white dress and flowered archways and confetti. It was the first time I have seen guests seated on rows of chairs, instead of around banquet tables with chopsticks poised to begin eating the minute the preliminaries were over. But the couple had certainly made it their own, despite the large crowd of onlookers. I’ve never seen an entrance like it, and I loved the wings. It turned out that the bride worked for Air China, so perhaps she used her connections to secure the air-space.
After another month of waiting around for taxis over the New Year Holiday, because all the drivers were busy taking their relatives shopping, I recently decided we needed our own transport. Working for an NGO our budget doesn’t run to chauffeur-driven minivans, like many of our friends in the private sector, so we bought a second-hand tuk-tuk for £35. You would probably know it as a “tuk-tuk”, like the motorbike taxis in Thailand, but here it’s called a “san lun che” or “three-wheeled car”, and we call it a “pouss-pouss” because we bought it from French friends and that’s what they called it.
It is not actually a motorbike, I am not that brave, but an electric bicycle with a two-seater bench welded onto the back, upholstered in red velvet for a touch of glamour. It’s a popular form of transport here, especially among the elderly. You often see an old man peddling one, with his wife and several bags of vegetables piled on the bench behind, or a red-faced woman cycling her chubby grandson to school. Several of my French friends use them for transporting their kids around, the Europeans being more adventurous about many aspects of life here than the Americans and Brits. (E.g about giving birth here, but that’s another story). My friend Bénédicte is very enthusiastic about hers, and the sight of her zipping around town inspired me to snap this one up when its previous owner left town.
Although a bargain at 500 yuan, it needed some work before it was roadworthy: not one of the 3 locks worked (engine, battery, storage compartment), the brakes were loose, the seat wobbled and the lights were all dead. These problems were easy to fix but the indicators are more challenging - they only beep when turned on, there is no light or any actual indicator. So you know you are going to turn and perhaps someone cycling next to you might hear the beep, but no-one behind you will.
I took a while to build up confidence driving it, although the controls are a piece of cake, (also there are always the pedals to fall back on if the battery runs low, which is very likely as it only has about 60 minutes of power). It was the other traffic that intimidated me, and more to the point the other rules of the road. While the highway code is fairly similar to ours, the driving protocol is different. Instead of keeping an eye on all the traffic and traffic controls and driving accordingly, drivers here fix their eyes on their goal and head towards it, taking evasive action as necessary. This works well as a system, as long as everyone does the same thing. Like a flock of birds, the crowd of vehicles avoids collisions by paying attention only to their immediate neighbours. I had figured this out by observing and by riding my bicycle around town, but I thought problems might arise if I tried to drive the way I do in the west. So I didn’t even try. My only concession to western protocol is that the boys and I wear helmets, otherwise I just go with the flow. No indicating - the beeping is just a distraction - no slowing down at the lights - someone would probably rear-end me – I just keep pace with everyone else and avoid anything that’s in the way.
So far it seems to be working. My only real difficulty, whether on the pouss-pouss or my bike, is when other vehicles are coming the wrong way down a one-way traffic lane. This happens because many roads have slow traffic lanes for bikes and motorbikes, but people don’t want to go all around the block to cross over into the correct lane, so they cut down the opposite side of the road. But there’s no rule for which side they should pass the traffic going the right way, because they shouldn’t be there in the first place. So if it is just one or two bikes, they tend to hug the curb, and you pass them on their left, but if there are a lot of them and the one-way lane has temporarily become a two-way road, then everyone passes on the right. It’s just that sometimes people don’t decide which is which until the last-minute, and that can be nerve-wracking.
I pay 11 yuan (80p) a month to park in our housing compound’s underground garage, where old Mrs Lin sits watch over a room full of bikes and motorbikes. The room is damp and her tiny living area is separated only by a flowered curtain hung up on a piece of wire, but she has a huge flat-screen tv and the compound cleaners come and sit with her when they have time off. She helps me maneuvre the unwieldy frame out of the gates, but I have to push it up the steep ramp by myself. It’s not an easy exit, but on the whole the pouss-pouss is a success, at least for trips around the neighbourhood. It has given us a measure of freedom.
Sunday 30 March
Yesterday we took a trip to Donghu Park, an ideal pouss-pouss destination. It’s just down the road so no danger of running out of juice, but too far to walk and a notorious dead-zone for cabs. Ethan came with us on his bike, so he got a little exercise and everyone was happy. The boys had fun rolling down the hills and some friendly kids let Isaac fly their kites. From the hill-top we saw a hot air balloon on the other side of the lake, so on the way out we stopped to see what was going on.
It was a wedding, with the guests seated on peach-coloured chairs beside the lake, and everyone who happened to be in the park that day crowded around for a good look. All necks were craned to stare at the balloon hovering above. As it slowly began to lower to the ground we saw a figure in white dress and veil shouting instructions into a two-way radio. The bride was making her entrance. She landed smoothly and clambered out of the basket, sporting a rather lovely pair of white feathered wings on her back. The maid of honour removed the wings and she joined the groom under an archway of flowers. An M.C. cleared his throat into a very loud microphone and instructed everyone to welcome the bride and groom on their happiest day. As we left the park we could hear the M.C. shouting the wedding vows in a hectoring tone more usual at political rallies: “DO YOU AGREE – TO TAKE THIS MAN – FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE – TO CHERISH AND CARE FOR…..etc.
It was the most western-style wedding I had ever seen, with the white dress and flowered archways and confetti. It was the first time I have seen guests seated on rows of chairs, instead of around banquet tables with chopsticks poised to begin eating the minute the preliminaries were over. But the couple had certainly made it their own, despite the large crowd of onlookers. I’ve never seen an entrance like it, and I loved the wings. It turned out that the bride worked for Air China, so perhaps she used her connections to secure the air-space.
posted by Cat Platt at 11:28 am
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