Sunday, November 21, 2010

Give the lady a hand!

To see an "overload" in China means to see a motorcycle, wagon, or electric bicycle carrying goods that take up a ridiculously large amount of space compared to the size of the vehicle.  And to accommodate these loads you will see drivers and/or passengers performing all sorts of strange contortions -- I have seen cyclists carrying pails in one arm while using the other arm to control the bike.

This morning, I saw a middle-aged woman with scooter knocked over by another electric scooter that had a long and wide load. The driver of the scooter with the wide load merely adjusted his load and went on his way, while the woman was brushing off her clothes beside her overturned bike.   When the woman finished brushing herself off, she had to pull the heavy bike up by herself -- you would have thought that the other driver would have helped her.  Pulling up the bike, one could see she had some of her things still on the pavement.  Her trying to pick these things up resulted in the bike falling on the pavement again, but the other way.  As she struggled, no one tried to help her -- everyone narrowly  swerved to avoid her.

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