can't beat that with a stick (part 1)

It's really easy to notice the things that are a pain in the butt about living as a foreigner in China, the things that don't work as efficiently here as they do back home, the things that make me homesick, or tired, or just plain frustrated. I think I've mentioned some of these here , and here, and of course here. But I've been thinking lately that there are a number of perks about living in China, things I'm going to miss when I return to the States, because there is nothing to compare in the U.S. Thus, I want to start a mini-series of posts on this blog, focused on things about China that simply can't be beat.

I encountered one of these today. When I got out of class this afternoon, I realized that my back bike tire was completely flat, because the tube was punctured. Were I to find myself in this situation in the U.S., my only recourse would be to walk my bike home, drive to a store, buy a new tube, and replace it myself. Considering the amount of time it generally takes for me to do such a thing, it is more than likely that several weeks (months?) might go by before I was back in the saddle again. (I suppose I could also take the bike to a bike shop to have someone else replace the punctured tube, but it's not likely I would get the problem solved any faster that way.)

Not so in China. As my Chinese textbook likes to say, China is a bicycle nation (一个自行车大国). Considering the nature of bikes, China is also necessarily a bicycle-repairing nation, and this was completely to my benefit today. As soon as I realized my tire was flat, I had to walk only about 1/2 a kilometer (it would have been shorter, but I wasn't really sure where I was going at first) until I found one of the many (and I mean many) bicycle repairmen who have a stand on the side of the road. Seriously, these guys are everywhere. The photo at the top isn't my own, but there are two of these little stands within two blocks of my apartment, and even more as you near the gate to Nankai university. They're everywhere.

Anyway, I found one of these guys. Ten minutes and 18 kuai (about $2.50) later, I had a competely new, freshly aired-up tube in my back bike tire. Boom. Done. I'm not even sure you could get the tube for that cheap in the U.S., much less the accompanying repair job.

Just one thing about China that can't be beat.