A beautiful integration of chinese and english....
Me, hit by a blue pickup...screaming in the middle of the street, bike splayed on the ground, stuff splayed further around the street...obtuse ignorant driver spouting out "duibuqi...duibuqi.." (im sorry, im sorry) which is the utter rediculous repsonse to everything they do wrong here. It is meaningliess, just a cultural norm.
So, I get off my fallen bike...stomp towards the blue idiot machine and start unloading the contents of my mind in delecate and precise chinese at the driver. Thinking that this was not enough, I approach the truck closer - somehow my fist ran into his rearview mirror - whip open the door and ask defiantly "did you see me? Did you Fucking see me!?!?!?!?!?!?!?". After a few moments of this chinese-spittle-anger profusion of questions, I slammed his door with the might of a monster and gathered my bike, things and set off on my way.
I thought it was over, the adreneline and the scorn of the injustice of absolutely stupid chinese drivers being allowed on their own roads (they honesltly don't look....this is not a stereotype or an unjust assumption...they simply dont look at intersections. They stop. Wait a half moment. Look straight and then go. Sometimes they hit things, like me. Sometimes I do something about it, like today).
So, yeah. Thought it was over. Then a block later a nice man on a scooter races up beside me (as I stopped to fix my seat that got twisted in the ordeal) and told me that he saw it, has the plate number and can help me if I want it. I politely declined, he made sure I was ok, aplogized for what happened (in a kind of "Im sorry this happend to you in my country" moment) which made me feel all warm and fuzzy - honestly - inside. Polite people do exist. He made sure again I was ok, apologized again and patted my back...and set off on his way.
Im fine, totally. Just a hair raising way to start the day. And an encounter with a gentleman on a scooter that helped start the day off right.
And on the lighter side, a whole lot of people in morning traffic got to see a foreigner give out a grand old tongue lashing!
