Ride Report: Sucking the wheel of the pig-slop guy
I woke up to a brilliantly sunny, warm day with a rare blue sky, so I decided to go out for a 65-kilometer ride. It was the first one I’ve done in about a week since I got bogged down with holiday duties and injured my shoulder. I hit the road at 8:30 a.m., during the worst crunch of rush hour. Traffic was insane and I spent the first five kilometers dodging city buses and weaving in and out of cars and trucks. I wasn’t alone, though. I was riding with – sometimes racing against – the pig-slop guy.
You can see these guys everywhere. They pedal or ride motorized three-wheel carts with one or two big blue barrels in the back full of food waste. They usually stay in the right lane and just putter along. But this guy was riding aggressively, doing radical lane changes and darting through holes in the traffic. Finally, he pulled over to get some gas.
The pig slop guys collect their leftovers at restaurants, and I guess they drop it off at a central collection point, where it gets taken to hog farms. I have no idea what the waste sells for. But it can look really nasty – a mushy, gloppy, oily stew of cabbage, noodles, chicken bones, rice. You never want to ride too close to the pig slop barrel. You need to beware of splash back. The barrels are usually really full:
Sometimes the scenes I see on Chinese roads seem Felliniesque, just fantastical and surreal. Sometimes they have more of a David Lynch quality. I’m not sure how I would characterize this situation.
It’s a young couple with their granny. Their battered micro van has broken down. People rarely use their hazard lights in China. It seems these folks are using the wicker basket cage of chickens and the grandmother to warn approaching vehicles to drive around them. Granny had her hair braided in a delicate little pig tail, but I forgot to photograph it.
Or maybe they’re just giving the chickens some air. Granny wouldn’t talk to me.
Another regular on the roads: the sugar cane dealers. You can buy a foot-long section of sugar cane, and they’ll slice away all the bark for you so that you can sit on the side of the road biting off chunks of cane, chewing it and spitting out the leftover indigestible fibrous parts on the road. It’s nature’s candy bar, though a messy one.
the hen (if it is) is about laying eggs.
It’s the first time i’ve been visiting your blog. And now i wonder which city are you in? Or should i post this comment in Chinese? Lol, anyways, you’ve a good observer.
this is so tottaly hott! JUST KIDDING!