October 20, 2006

I bought a bike today. It is a nice one. Cheap too. I bought it without a translator, that was different. I don’t know enough Chinese to eat or to find a restroom, but I can point. And xie-xie is a good phrase to know. I can also tell the taxi driver “fagua jia” (french street), which will get me to the diner. But I am not going to need that anymore.

But back to the bike, it is pretty. It is a lot like the bikes I rode at OOR over the summer two summers ago. So far people either think I am rich to drop almost 800 on a bike for 8 more days, or that I am going to end up staying here. I, myself, am not even sure. Since I have a plane ticket back already, I think I am going to end up giving the bike to the diner. The owners have to provide housing for the employees, and the boys house is about a half an hour walk away from the diner. So they really could use the bike after I have had my fun.

Now about my subject (if it the there), does generosity breed generosity? And am I really being generous? The money for the bike was given to me, so giving it away isn’t really costing me anything besides money that was never really mine. I could say that the bike came out of the money I paid myself for the trip. But once all my loving friends, family, and others gave me the money for the trip, it became mine. I could have spend the money that, say, my dad gave me and then thrown in the same amount of money I worked for. But that really isn’t the point here… I don’t know what the point is.

I guess what I am saying is that I could have used that 800 RMB to buy souvenirs, or saved it for the next trip I am going to go on, but I decided to use it to bless the people here…

What do you think, did I misuse funds entrusted to me? Or should I just buy it with my personal money as a really big souvenir? It is pretty nice…

PS. Or I could just stay here for a few more years…