The Beach

In China, the beach is a curious place.  None of those Western conventions exist--at peak sun hours, you can stroll for miles and miles without running into a soul; there's no dodging blankets or children or plastic alligators; the hermit crabs rule the sand.

In China, on the beach, you are free to ride off into the sunset.

But once the sun sets, watch out.  Families, work groups, rowdy friends drinking buckets of beer crawl out of the sunless spaces they occupied.  Having tanned skin is not fashionable in China, in fact, it smacks of peasant field laborer.  So the impossibly slim porcelain beauties come out at night to cavort, carouse and crack their fireworks until late into the night.  And swim.

And, obviously, do things like tai chi on a unicycle.  Because China wouldn't be China if there weren't people doing odd forms of exercise in the oddest places.