Poor Bicycle

My bike got the crap beat out of it a couple of times today. I understand the first time, but the second time is a real mystery. I left my apartment early to go run, and saw that my bike had fallen over. I picked it up, and nothing appeared harmed, so I rode off to the park. On the way I realized that the cover on the bell had fallen off, so it wouldn't ring. This was a real blow. I really like the bell. It was such a happy bell, I never rung it at people, for warning or anything, I just liked to ring it every so often. It was still really early though, and I hoped if I made it back quickly enough, I could beat the street sweepers, find all the pieces, and I could put it back together. When I came back, I forgot to look for it right away, and wend and ate breakfast first, but I did remember to look for it before I left for class. I found one piece, but not the bell itself, so still no ringing. Now it only makes a despondent click when the thumb catch falls back into place.

The second beating I found out about after class. I came out to ride my bike home, and it had fallen over once more, but this time with some damage. The basket is bent up, so instead of a nice square-ish shape it is more of a triangle, and the handle bars are turned at an angle, so that the left side is closer to my body than the right side. I tried to try to fix either of these problems by banging on different parts of the bike, but after hitting it for a few seconds, and nothing happening I gave up. I figure the crappier my bike looks the less likely it is to get stolen.

I have been told (by reliable Taiwanese sources) both, that their are no thieves in Taiwan, and that Taiwan has lots of theives, and I should watch out. My own judgement is that there are not very many thieves, and I should only watch out for my stuff in crowded places, like night markets. On campus the accepted bike locking stragety is a lock through the spokes of the back tire, so if anyone tried to ride it it would destroy the spokes. Within this, most people go around the whole back wheel, and through the spokes, but quite a lot of people also just put a lock around the one or two spokes, and maybe the supports for the rack, then call it good. The moral of the story is that no one acutally locks their bikes to anything, and that you could just drive through campus at night and fill the back of your truck with bikes. But no one does.

People are even more lenient with umbrellas. The whole city goes on the honor code. Whenever it rains people use umbrellas, but they can't bring them into stores because then the inside of the store would get all wet. So everyone leaves them at the door. At the library on campus (on rainy days) there are well over one hundred umbrellas outside the door at any given time. Anyone leaving any store with umbrellas at the door could just take one that they liked the look of and be off. But no one does.