4 Pigs on a Bike

If you are not aware, Chinese traffic is very interesting.  People drive in all sorts of directions, and try to squeeze the nose of their car in anywhere they can.  Most times, when merging, you pull in, and the other people have to stop.  The rule is, if you can get your nose in, you have the right of way (I really don't think there is a true right of way).  To compound this, bicycles, electric bicycles and mopeds are everywhere.  There are probably 2 or 3 for every car.  They seem to have even less rules.  They can go both ways on the street, can ride on sidewalks, and are allowed to ride between lanes, or off the road, or anywhere.  This makes crossing the street on foot, very interesting.  Kamala and I always joke, that when crossing the street, it's not the car that will get you, it's the moped.  You never know where they are coming from, and they don't have a blinker to use either.. . On my way to work one morning, I saw a three-wheeled electric bicycle cruise by.  This was on the forth ring road, which is one of the busiest roads in Beijing.  On the back of this bicycle were 4 full grown pig carcasses.  It was very impressive.  He had them stacked three across long ways, and one on top running across the other three.  I realize that the pigs have to get to the market somehow, but this was by far the best way I had ever seen.  People sometimes cram onto bikes and mopeds as well.  I have seen an entire family, (mother, father, child) riding on one moped several times.  Honestly, given all the forms of transit (including taxi/bus/and subway) I think that bicycle or moped are probably the most efficient and economical.  I don't blame families for traveling this way.

-JASON