GOING BEYOND THE FOURTH RING

I am not an expert, but I think this city is organized into rings encasing smaller rings. The higher the number, the larger the ring. I am somewhere buried inside the second ring. My 50 RMB map covers the entire second ring, the southern half of the third ring, and the southern half of the fourth ring. This week, I decided to take the bike beyond the fourth ring, beyond the map, into the uncharted lands of the northern rings. I ate some tomato and fried egg, picked a hot location, and drew an award winning map.


My homemade map of the land beyond the fourth ring can be seen in all it’s screaming glory above. The goal was to find the Bird’s Nest, the location of the 2008 Olympics. When I reached Tiananmen Square, I realized I’d been peddling south for thirty minutes. I turned up the Depeche Mode in my headphones and pulled off a practiced move, the U-Turn.

After crossing bridges and rivers … after battling heavy winds and madman traffic … after crashing into an old man … after peddling through Depeche Mode’s ‘Music for the Masses‘, Phil Collin’s ‘Face Value‘, and Al Green‘s ‘Greatest Hits’ … I finally found the Bird’s Nest.


China only creates sites on a man crumbling scale. Similar to the Forbidden City, the scale of this site seems to shrink man to a legless insect crawling on the back of the moon. There are several exciting pieces of architecture at the site of the flamboyant 2008 Olympics. Each piece wrestles for your attention, pulling off one another. The Bird’s Nest seems to garner the most attention. I try to buy tea at a booth here using my best Chinese and the women laugh at me. I revert back to speechless pointing and receive my bottled tea. A monkey could do what I do.


And for those of you that are questioning if my elementary map really got me to the Bird‘s Nest from Dongsishisitiao, the picture below is for your refrigerator.