More proof that speed is relative

Or, Western vs. Oriental speed.

A couple of days ago, I had an encounter with the Chinese director of our programme. I’d just got back to school from buying lunch and for the first time ever since I’ve been working at the school, I got reminded of the rule about wheeling bikes through the school. I don’t do that because as far as I’m concerned, rank hath its privileges and, as a teacher, I shouldn’t be subject to this particular restriction. I note that those teachers who drive cars don’t have to get out and push their cars and that the ground staff never get off their bikes.

I think what’s really going on is the over-solicitousness which foreigners sometimes encounter here. It’ll probably be known that I’m quite fast on my new bike (although I was also quite fast on the old one), and they’ll mistake my reasonable pace for speed because their own pace is so sluggish and torpid. I have heard one story about a foreigner who bought a bike and could go nowhere without being surrounded by a whole troop of his students.

It’s annoying because I do keep a fairly sharp eye out everywhere I go because this is a nation of traffic morons. When I’m waiting to cross the road in the morning, I wait until it’s clear while the local imbeciles just march out into the traffic with no regard for their safety. In other words, I’m more responsible on the roads than a lot of them, especially the clowns on their electric bikes.

However, I also have to be careful but the last thing I need is for the school to start getting tetchy. I’m still going to ride my bike through the school in the morning because there’s no one around. The joy vampires have made sure that the students are already at school. But I may have to start walking it at lunchtime because I come and go through the main gate. As much as I don’t want to be reduced to the level of some snivelling schoolboy, it’d perhaps be politic to be seen to plod about. I had thought that I was a dog, but it seems I’m just a tail.