January 30, 2005

• Ah, the callous disregard for one's fellow road user. It's a global phenomenon. They should bring the cameras to Beijing if they need plenty more content - cars all over the pavements, triple-parking, blocking up old narrow side-streets, you name it. As a militant cyclist type it sets me fuming.
• Sing ho! for the Merry Pranks of Til Oil-in-his-vehicle!
• This is fantastic, especially the sarcastic German quips underneath the photos. Abiezer_Coppe: I've tried cycling in Shanghai, and didn't enjoy it much; I'd imagine that Beijing is even worse with those massive eight-lane Olympic highways they are building through the middle of everywhere now.
• By "pavements," I believe Abiezer_Coppe is referring to what we here call "sidewalks." They didn't build those Beijing streets with private vehicles in mind, so now the owners have to park anywhere they can. I also thought of Beijing while looking at those photos.
• erebus: Of course he is. It states in his profile that he is a "Brit working in China"; from that, it's not hard to find out the American equivalent for the British meaning of pavement on this marvellous intarweb. I'm a bit militant about protecting my own dialect from American cultural hegemony.
• Well, excuse me for trying to help my fellow benighted colonials understand without having to look it up. I was not saying his use of "pavements" had anything wrong with it; it's just different from what we say.
• You know, I nearly put 'sidewalk' in brackets in anticipation of the confusion but I thought it might look condescending. ThreeDayMonk - I don't see the worst of the road building in my part of town. On the other hand they're building a new underground (subway) line nearby. I might try and knock together a post on the impact of the Olympic preparations here. Quite a few interesting angles. I read London's resigned to failing in it's bid for 2012 (is it?). Never been to Shanghai after working in China for nearly a decade, which is a bit sad. erebus - when I first arrived as a young student none of my American or mainland European classmates could understand my Northern English accent. I've had to learn to speak a bit more neutrally. I think my favourite US accent was hearing a lad from the Blue Ridge mountains who sounded great when he got all down home.
• "
• The subtitle for this beauty is "Why do I hear Wagner in this scene?"
• Abiezer_Coppe, how's that air cleanup going? When I was there for the imaginatively-named Spring Festival three years ago, the coal smoke was so thick that visibility was about a quarter-mile (that's what, about 400 meters?) They're going to have some heavy lifting to get it breathable by the Olympics.
• Sort of improving erebus. One of the reasons the 2000 Beijing bid failed was the appalling environmental indicators, so I know that cleaning up was part of the winning bid. Most cabs and buses run on LPG now, but the explosion in private car ownership can't help (as well as adding to the parking problem). I read that State planners seriously underestimated the Chinese public's willingness to hock the farm to by a car. It's THE statys symbol for many people.
• I couldn't believe how many new Beemers, Mercs, etc., I saw in Guangzhou and Shanghai. I didn't see any Rollers in either place, but I know you can buy them there.