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Traffic was moving but it was heavy, and Chinese drivers in cars do not respect motorcycles.\u00a0 If they want to occupy your spot on the road, they just move over.\u00a0 It\u2019s not that they don\u2019t see you; they just don\u2019t care.\u00a0 You\u2019re a motorcycle.\u00a0 They\u2019re a car.\u00a0 They know who\u2019s going to win.\u00a0 At very low speeds in city traffic, you can scream at them or maneuver away or stop.\u00a0 At freeway speeds if you don\u2019t get out of the way, you\u2019re a hood ornament or a big wet spot on the asphalt.\u00a0 Our Chinese riders\u2019 propensity to ride on the shoulder all the time suddenly made sense to me.<\/p>\n It was dark well before we reached our hotel that night and we had to ride about 45 minutes or so after the sun set.\u00a0 The Asian-configuration RX3 headlight is not very bright (our US bikes are much better), and to make a bad situation worse, as I have mentioned before I don\u2019t see too well in the dark.\u00a0 To see a little better that night, I lifted my visor.\u00a0 Even though it was a clear visor it still has a slight tint to it and when I lift it at night I can see better.<\/p>\n In the motorcycle world, there\u2019s another term that\u2019s similar to ATGATT (you know, all the gear, all the time).\u00a0 It\u2019s \u201cvisor down.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 What it means is that you should keep your helmet visor down all the time.\u00a0 The reason is obvious:\u00a0 You don\u2019t want to get whacked in the eye with whatever is floating in the air.\u00a0 That night, I proved that \u201cvisor down\u201d makes sense.\u00a0 I caught a bug smack in my right eyeball.\u00a0 It hurt immediately, but I could still see.\u00a0 At that point, I put the visor down, but it was a classic case of closing the barn door after the horse got away.<\/p>\n We arrived at the hotel about 20 minutes later.\u00a0 I was tired and cranky. \u00a0I went to my hotel room in a blue funk.\u00a0 Gresh tried to calm me down, but he was fighting a losing battle.\u00a0 \u201cWe have a couple of good rolls of toilet paper in this room,\u201d he said.\u00a0 That was a good point and it was definitely something to be happy about, but it didn\u2019t help me feel any better.<\/p>\n I really didn\u2019t want to eat dinner that night, but I decided that bagging dinner would be too rude.\u00a0 So I went and I sat next to Sean.\u00a0 After some small talk, he noticed my eye.\u00a0 He was shocked.\u00a0 I had not seen myself in the mirror and I guess it looked pretty bad.\u00a0 My eye wasn\u2019t white anymore; it was mostly red and swollen.\u00a0 Okay, I\u2019ve been whacked in the eye by bugs before.\u00a0 I knew it would be red and it would bug me (pardon the pun) for a couple of days, and then it would be okay.<\/p>\n We rode through the countryside the next day to see the Great Wall at another location, but I still wasn\u2019t over being upset and cranky from the night before.\u00a0 When I lead rides in the US or in Mexico that last for more than a weekend, there\u2019s usually one guy in the group that will get cranky at some point.\u00a0 I had thought about that before this ride and I realized that on a ride lasting over five weeks someone would get to that point.\u00a0 I just didn\u2019t think that guy would be me.\u00a0 But it was. I was tired, my eye was jacked up, and the stress of watching out for Chinese drivers was getting to me.<\/p>\n The next morning, I missed grabbing a good photo because of that.\u00a0 We were riding to see the Great Wall at a different location.\u00a0 On a lightly-traveled mountain road on a curve, we all stopped and Dong intentionally laid his RX1 on its side in the middle of the lane.\u00a0 He got on the bike with his knee out and had one of the other guys photograph him from the front (to make it look like the bike was leaned way over in the corner and he was dragging his knee).\u00a0 I think nearly everyone got their photo on the bike, but I declined.\u00a0 I just wasn\u2019t in the mood.\u00a0 I think Dong knew I wanted that photo, though, and after I had returned to the US, he emailed a copy to me.\u00a0 (It’s the photo you see above.)<\/p>\n When we got to the Great Wall that morning it involved a considerable hike up a steep hill to get close enough to touch it.\u00a0 I\u2019ve done that on prior visits, so I didn\u2019t want to do it that day.\u00a0 Four of us opted to wait while the rest of the guys made the hike.\u00a0 It was relaxing.\u00a0 Wong, Zuo, Furem, and I shared a bag of peanuts Sean had left in his car while we waited for the others to return.<\/p>\n As we were riding back to the hotel from that location, heading downhill through the mountains the same way we had ridden in, I started slowing down.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t realize it at first, but eventually I was the last guy in our formation.\u00a0 Then I started riding even more slowly, until the rest of the guys were so far ahead of me I couldn\u2019t see them.\u00a0 My eye was still bothering me and by now I was having some problems seeing well.\u00a0 To add fuel to that fire, my left shoulder was hurting (I have a pinched nerve somewhere in there and it bothers me on long motorcycle rides).<\/p>\n But there was more to what I was feeling than just what I described above.\u00a0 Something was going on.\u00a0 I suppose a shrink would call it an anxiety attack.\u00a0 I was driving around every twist in the road expecting to see a truck stopped in my lane, an oncoming truck passing another vehicle in my lane, a person sweeping the street in the middle of the turn in my lane, a guy pulling out right in front of me, a bus making a U-turn in front of me, a car cornering too hard drifting into my lane, someone going the wrong way in my lane, someone pulling into my lane without looking, an old woman walking directly in front of me, people stopping to have a conversation in the middle of the street, or someone squatting down to take a dump (in my lane, of course).\u00a0 On this trip, I had seen all of what I just described and more.\u00a0 What was happening that morning was the enormity of the insanity that is riding a motorcycle in China caught up with me.\u00a0 Yeah, it was an anxiety attack.\u00a0 The nuttiness of it all, my vulnerability being on a motorcycle, and my inability to do anything about it was suddenly overwhelming.<\/p>\n The guys were waiting for me at the next intersection, and from there we went to a Sinopec gas station to refuel the bikes.\u00a0 It was hotter than hell.\u00a0 I guess it was fair to say I was miserable.\u00a0 I was still feeling all of this accumulated anxiety when a guy in a black Mercedes starting blasting his horn at me in that gas station parking lot.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t want to drive around me; he wanted me to move even though there was plenty of room for him to go around.\u00a0 It was more of the \u201cI\u2019m a car, you\u2019re a motorcycle\u201d bullshit that is pervasive in China.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know what came over me, but I think I just got supremely tired of being the vulnerable victim.\u00a0 I looked directly at that Mercedes driver.\u00a0 I made eye contact.\u00a0 He looked at me, not realizing I was here with eight other guys on motorcycles.\u00a0 I eased the clutch out until my bike was directly alongside his window (which was open).\u00a0 I then leaned on my horn and let it rip for a good solid 20 seconds.\u00a0 Then one of the other Chinese riders watching me did the same, and yet another yelled a really bad word at the Mercedes (which he probably learned from either Gresh or me).\u00a0 It was pretty funny, especially hearing that kind of profanity with a Chinese accent.\u00a0\u00a0The guy in the Mercedes had screwed with the wrong Marine on the wrong day.\u00a0 Without realizing it, he took on the Wild Angels that hot afternoon just outside of Beijing.\u00a0 He suddenly and fully realized what might happen as a result of his boorishness.\u00a0 He rolled up his window, he averted his eyes, and he backed his big black Mercedes respectfully away from us.\u00a0 That broke the spell.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t helpless any more.\u00a0 I felt amazingly better.<\/p>\n Okay, enough about me being a butthead:\u00a0 On to Beijing proper.\u00a0 We stopped at the Beijing Zongshen dealer that afternoon (where they were expecting us) and it was the Dajiu<\/em> and Arjiu<\/em> show all over again.<\/p>\n There were the usual tons of photos with Gresh and me.\u00a0 Hey, how often do Dajiu <\/em>and Arjiu<\/em> show up in your neighborhood?\u00a0 Tracy told us the dealer had just sold five new RX1s.\u00a0 He wanted to have a ceremony in which we gave the keys and Zongshen fluorescent vests to the five lucky guys who had purchased the bikes.\u00a0\u00a0I was feeling my old self again.\u00a0 I saw an opportunity and I took it.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll do it this time, Tracy,\u201d I said, \u201cbut if you don\u2019t start doing a better job getting these dealers prepped it will be the last time.\u201d \u00a0Tracy doesn\u2019t always know when I\u2019m teasing him.\u00a0 I could tell that this was going to be one of those times.\u00a0 Gresh picked up on it, too.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah!\u201d Gresh said.\u00a0 Joe sometimes has a way with words.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is wrong, Dajiu<\/em>?\u201d Tracy asked, concern and maybe a little fear showing in his eyes.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere\u2019s the watermelon?\u201d I said.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re supposed to have watermelon waiting for us at each dealer visit,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah,\u201d Gresh added, \u201cand it\u2019s supposed to be chilled, too.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s right there in Section 6, Paragraph 3.2 of the Dajiu<\/em> and Arjiu<\/em> contract,\u201d I said, \u201cand there\u2019s no cold watermelon here, Tracy!\u201d\u00a0 (I don\u2019t think I need to mention this for my readers, but I will just in case you were wondering, there is no such thing as a Dajiu<\/em> and Arjiu<\/em> contract, let alone any paragraphs about cold watermelon.)<\/p>\n \u201cAh, I am so sorry,\u201d Tracy said.\u00a0 \u201cIt is my bad, Dajiu<\/em>.\u00a0 I am so sorry.\u201d\u00a0 Then he turned to Gresh, and addressing him as Arjiu<\/em>, he said the same thing.<\/p>\n \u201cTracy, relax,\u201d I said.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m just screwing with you.\u201d\u00a0 But it was too late.\u00a0 Tracy heard me tell him I was joking, but it didn\u2019t register.<\/p>\n We had a great ceremony and we had fun taking photos and giving those five proud new RX1 owners oversized Styrofoam keys and then their real keys.\u00a0 It was one of the most fun things I did on this entire trip.\u00a0 As we were doing so, I could see Tracy (who had left and returned) slicing several large (and delightfully cold) watermelons on a table in front of the showroom.\u00a0 Hey, a contract\u2019s a contract.<\/p>\n The Beijing dealer had an RZ3, Zongshen\u2019s naked sportbike, parked in front.\u00a0 Gresh was really impressed.\u00a0 I took photos of it and put them on the CSC blog that night, but I couldn\u2019t tell you then what you now know to be the case:\u00a0 CSC is going to bring the RZ3 to North America.\u00a0 I like the RZ3 a lot.\u00a0 It\u2019s essentially the RC3 with a normal seating position and upright bars without the RC3\u2019s bodywork.\u00a0 We\u2019re going to sell a lot of RZ3s.\u00a0 The RZ3 has the RX3 powertrain, and that\u2019s both bulletproof and fast.\u00a0 I already have ideas on how I\u2019m going to customize mine.<\/p>\n When we got off the subway after visiting The Forbidden City, we waited on a street corner for our Uber ride back to the hotel.\u00a0 I watched the scooters and small utility vehicles rolling by, and I realized that nearly every one of them was electric.\u00a0\u00a0 I must have seen 200 scooters during the 20 minutes we waited, and perhaps 2 had gasoline engines.\u00a0\u00a0 This wholesale adaption of electric scooters and small utility vehicles in China is nothing short of amazing.<\/p>\n Sean explained to me that the transition to electric vehicles started about 15 years ago, and the government has done a number of things to encourage people to convert to electricity.\u00a0 For starters (once again, pardon my pun), many of the larger cities in China now prohibit motorcycles and scooters unless the vehicle is electric.\u00a0 Electric scooters are allowed where gasoline-powered bikes are not.\u00a0 That alone is an enormous incentive.\u00a0 The next incentive is that you don\u2019t need a driver\u2019s license to take an electric vehicle on the street.\u00a0 You just buy one and go.\u00a0 And finally, as I\u2019ve mentioned before, electricity is cheap in China.\u00a0 There are windfarms, solar panel farms, coal plants, nuclear power plants, and hydroelectric power plants all over the country.\u00a0 We saw scooters parked on the sidewalk and plugged into extension cords running into small stores everywhere.\u00a0 People charge them like iPhones; they didn\u2019t miss any opportunity to top off the batteries on these things.<\/p>\n That night was a great night.\u00a0 The Zongshen dealer took us to a restaurant that specialized in Peking duck. The guys were excited about this development, but I was initially leery.\u00a0 I thought I didn\u2019t like Peking duck.\u00a0 Boy, was I ever wrong!<\/p>\n I tried Peking duck 25 years ago when I visited Beijing with Sue.\u00a0 We both thought the duck was awful.\u00a0 That\u2019s because we went to a restaurant that served tourists.\u00a0 The food at that place didn\u2019t have to be good.\u00a0 They knew they would never see us again, and Yelp hadn\u2019t been invented yet.<\/p>\n This night in Beijing with the Zongshen dealer and the RX3 owners club was different.\u00a0 The Peking duck was incredible.\u00a0 The chef sliced it paper thin right at our table.\u00a0 They had thin tofu (almost like a crepe), and the guys taught me how to eat duck properly.\u00a0 The deal is you put a few fresh vegetables on the tofu, you add a slice or two of duck, you add this amazing brown gravy, and then you roll the affair up like a burrito.\u00a0 Wow, it was delicious!<\/p>\n We had several rounds of toasts at dinner that night and the liquor flowed freely.\u00a0 I got lucky.\u00a0 Kong sat next to me and he schooled me in the proper way to make a Chinese toast.\u00a0 To show respect, you clink your glass against the other guy\u2019s glass, but you hold your glass at a lower level so that when the two glasses meet, the rim of yours is lower than the other person\u2019s.\u00a0 When the Zongshen dealer toasted me, I followed Kong\u2019s advice, and the Chinese riders all nodded approvingly.\u00a0 Ah, Dajiu<\/em> knows.<\/p>\n It was funny.\u00a0 Sergeant Zuo and I had made several toasts to each other, and when we touched glasses, we both tried frantically to get our glasses lower than the other, so much so that we usually crashed the bottoms of both on the table (to a hearty laugh and round of applause from everyone).\u00a0 Zuo was being polite; I was being completely serious (I have enormous respect for him).<\/p>\n The next day we took the subway into Beijing.\u00a0 We already were in Beijing when we got on the subway, but Beijing is a megacity and you can\u2019t simply drive into the center of it.\u00a0 We rode the subway for a good 45 minutes, and when we emerged, we visited the Forbidden City and Tien An Men Square.\u00a0 It was all grand.\u00a0 It was touristy, but it\u2019s something that should be on any China visitor\u2019s bucket list.<\/p>\n After seeing the Forbidden City, we walked around downtown Beijing for a while.\u00a0 I told Tracy my eye was getting worse and I wanted to get antibiotic eye drops for it.\u00a0 It was Sunday afternoon, but there was a large pharmacy right in front of us and it was open.\u00a0 Tracy went in with me and he told one of the young pharmacists what I wanted.\u00a0 She responded and it didn\u2019t sound good.<\/p>\n \u201cShe cannot sell it to you without a prescription,\u201d he told me.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, shoot, Tracy, it\u2019s Sunday afternoon,\u201d I said.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re not going to find a doctor.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be okay.\u00a0 Let\u2019s just go.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, it is okay, Dajiu<\/em>,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cWe are China and we have a bureaucracy.\u00a0 It is my bad.\u201d<\/p>\n Good old Tracy, I thought.\u00a0 The guy felt responsible for everything.\u00a0 I was resigned to the fact that my eye was going to take a while to get better.\u00a0 Tracy, in the meantime, had walked not more than 8 feet away to an elderly woman sitting at a wooden table.\u00a0 He spoke to her in Chinese and pointed to me.\u00a0 She never looked at me, nor did she look up.\u00a0 She simply pulled out a white pad with a big \u201cR\u201d at the top.\u00a0 Nah, this can\u2019t be, I thought.\u00a0 She wrote something in Chinese characters and handed the slip to Tracy.<\/p>\n \u201cOur prescription,\u201d Tracy said.\u00a0 \u201cSuch a bureaucracy.\u201d\u00a0 He walked the three steps back to the pharmacist, Tracy handed her the prescription, and 30 seconds (and 24 yuan, or about $4) later, I had my antibiotic eye drops.\u00a0 I put two drops in my eye.\u00a0\u00a0When we rode out of Beijing the next morning, my eye was good as new.<\/p>\n Like the above story?\u00a0 Want more?\u00a0 Pick up your copy of Riding China<\/a>!<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/150727_4454-600.jpg\")
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