BEIJING - Thursday night, I stopped by the Foreign Language Center's supermarket shortly before closing. I bought jasmine tea, a bowl of spicy pork ramen noodles and an orange Fanta. I threw the purchase into my bike basket and pedalled the three minutes home.
I didn't know at the time it would be last time I would ride my precious bike. This morning, I went down to the lobby of my dormitory, Building 23, and ducked into the bike storage catacombs on the left side of the building. I soon reached the place where I keep my bike, the third storage area on the right-side.
I looked for the familiar piece of brown and black checkered velor that covered the cracked leather seat. For the bright red lock, a giant piece of metal licorice with see-through crimson plastic on top. I went to the adjacent bike area, and then to the ones on the other side of the hallway. It was nowhere to be found.
The receptionists didn't even know I owned a bike. Describe it to us, they asked. Struggling for words, I managed a few appropriate adjectives. It was old, with a red lock and a seat that wasn't all black. The head receptionist took notes as I was talking, and they promised a search.
Twelve hours later, I hold out little hope of ever seeing the bike again. As I've mentioned before, bikes get stolen all the time in China, and what are the odds of locating one stray set of wheels in a sea of them?
With the loss of my bike and the lock, I lose Y100, about $12.50. This presumes that I can find a new one at the same cost, not a guarantee considering the amount of time it took to get the first one. I'm also out my main mode of transport, a rusty set of wheels that quickly became my favorite possession.
The bike had no name. I wanted to give it one, assigning something to claim it as my own. "Suzi" was the closest I came, but somehow it seemed slightly vulgar to christen a bike with a human name. I thought what I might call another vehicle, but failed to get past the "Red Rocket," a Toyota Tercel I once drove around Albany. Then there were Chinese names, which might have been appropriate considering the surroundings. Considering how long it took me to decide on my own Chinese name, I couldn't see going down that path again, only to end up with something silly like 小车 (xiaoche, little car) or vulgar 拉肚子 (laduzi, diaherra).
The only thing I knew about the bike's origins was a faded decal under the seat that said "Catac." The man who sold it to me claimed it was German, although he later modified that and said it was German and Chinese. Perhaps that meant a Chinese bike with a borrowed German name. Or maybe long ago it arrived by ship from China; I'm not sure, and it never really mattered.
Most afternoons I'd take the bike somewhere, going an adventure masked as an errand. Every trip to the Internet Café I'd take a different route. Sometimes I would ride on the side of the main highway, blasting French techno on iPod, cars honking their horns as they passed. Other times I'd wind through campus, watching in awe as Chinese students rode two or three to a bike,
One time I crossed the railroad tracks -- the Trans-Siberian runs not 100 meters behind my dorm -- and went to the Korean part of Wudaokou. Here dishes are garnished with kimchi, not soy sauce, and some people speak worse Putonghua than I do. I wandered into a back alley, passed a club named R&B and waved to a couple old men on the street. It all seemed natural when pedalling by.
The Tsinghua campus makes sense on a bike. The large red slogan banners, announcing events and major government initiatives, are draped across the roads at a bike rider's eye level. Major campus services - the library, canteens, and administrative offices - are scattered over a couple of kilometers. By foot, it can take 20 or 30 minutes to walk between parts. Only by taking a bike are things located within reasonable distances.
This is why my period of mourning will be brief. Soon enough I will again have wheels, will again be pedalling around the flat, wide streets of Wudaokou, dodging traffic and running errands long after the Catac is melted for scrap metal.
