The Prettiest Bike in Beijing

Absolutely fabulous...

Just bought a bike. And when I say "just," I mean I paid for it two days ago and the guy who sold it to me gave me the run-around for two days before he actually getting around to putting it together.  He sells and constructs bicycles outside our building.  His "shop" consists of two tattered, red Barca Loungers and an assortment of wrenches in a tin toolkit.  His skin is dark for a Chinese, and he has an oddly shaped roll of fat around his midsection which droops down into his pants.  We call him Zixingche Da Wang (自行车大王; literally: The Big Bicycle King).  He's got quite a nice sense of humor actually and calls us pengyou (朋友; friends).  Unfortunately, though, it doesn't appear that we get the pengyou discount.  In reality, it wasn't so bad of a deal, 260RMB for the bike, just about $40, and a few bucks for a lock.

As I said, getting the bike put together was the hardest part of the whole ordeal. Since Da Wang is just outside our building, I went down continually to check to see if he had yet assembled my new machine.  Invariably, his response was, 明天吧 (tomorrow, then).  One time he even told me that he was just too busy right now with so many customers buying bikes.  I just looked at him and laughed; I don't know how to say "chopped liver" yet in Chinese.

I realized that I'd have to start playing hardball if I ever wanted to see this bike.  On my way out to dinner this evening (now two days after the sale), I told him that I'd had enough and to give me my money back.  He pleaded, “OK了, OK了” promising to have it done by the time I got back from dinner. Fast forward to 9:30pm, after some not so inexpensive Peking Duck at 便宜坊 ("cheap shop"), the bike is of course not done, but Da Wang is (surprisingly) still there.  He tried to give me a sob story about how he's not even eaten yet, but I told him that there was no more 明天 and that I wanted my bike now, now.  I was about to suggest that perhaps skipping a few meals would not kill him...but then re-evaluated and decided it would be in my best interest to keep that thought to myself.

In any event, now at 10:30pm two and a half days later, I have my bike. It is bright hot pink, totally fabulous, and easily the prettiest bike in all of Beijing...totally worth it.