D38: 红柳沟 → 大水沟

May 23, 2021

I had a tailwind the whole way to Hongliugou. The sky might have been ugly and full of dust but the wind was at my back the whole way. I know it was flat but I averaged an unimaginable 13kph moving speed.

Today, I paid for that tailwind by having either a headwind or a crosswind the whole day. Not counting the super steep bits up from the service "roads" passing around the spots where construction work was being done, the time I got off my bike and walked up a slope was because I was otherwise afraid of being blown over.

It was, however, gorgeous. The sky was a perfect blue. The clouds fluffy white cottonballs. The dry grasslands are carpeted with wildflowers and scrub in all the different shades of green.

One of the many gorges cutting across the flatlands

You wouldn't know from this calm how windy it actually was

It's just that the wind was so loud I could barely hear the music from my speaker and, by the time the day was done, I hurt all over like I'd done twice the distance and three times the cumulative elevation gain.

In any case, even if the wind hadn't sapped all my energy, today was once again a short day. My refusal to take a taxi to the city to meet the fellow from the museum for dinner ended up with him coming out to meet me, and, other than this leading to my sleeping late, that's enough said on that topic....

Bribery provokes people to anger, when will corrupt practice stop?

Birthdays, business, school, marriage, funerals, baby showers, taking on debt for these responsibilities will be a ticking time bomb

Then, just as I was eating an early lunch and getting ready to go pick up the other package I'd had sent to me (spare brake pads), my Large Media Client¹ sent me 3,000 characters of translation on Yuan Longping² and I had to work. I mean I didn't have to have to, but—even if my seeking out Large Media Client was because I intentionally and spitefully wanted to woo them away from the hot mess of a translator³ they were using before—they've been giving me a lot more work than I thought they would and it's very beneficial for me to be available for them.

If only I could get them to give me articles in the evening instead of midday, things would be perfect.

Resist waste, act thrifty (the idea is that you shouldn't have wasteful extravagant weddings)

Thrifty when alive, wasteful in death, don't have extravagant funerals

Second part of the image above shows the funeral procession blocking traffic and the people on bicycles commenting that this was not the way the deceased lived their life

As a result, the only reason it wasn't dark by the time I got into town was because I'm so far north that the sun hasn't yet finished setting until nearly 9pm.

Pointed myself at the police station in anticipation of the likely difficulties that would come from my being in Ningxia⁴, had a lovely meal of sheep parts, unrecognizable vegetables, and strangely shaped noodles from a restaurant that comped the meal on the basis of it being "so cool" to have a foreigner eating in their restaurant⁵.

Then, I got to go have fun with the police.

Don't pay an extravagant dowry and resist the burden of debt for a wedding

Refusing to get married without an extravagant dowry is low class

Don't think that only people who put on extravagant weddings are worth anything. Don't demand a huge dowry before promising to give your love.

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¹ Whether or not Large Media Client are state owned and it's translator cred rather than original writer, I'm wondering if the amount of work they have recently been giving me that gets me a byline means that I can no longer honestly tell a questioning official that I'm definitively not a journalist.

² This is two links to two separate articles by the way.

³ The two of us have a history that involves her being fired from my company, but mostly it just offends me that anyone would pay for the quality level she thinks is acceptable enough to leave her name on.

⁴ As based on the difficulties in Ningxia every night I was here in 2018

⁵ I'm going to need to find some way to replenish my supply of gift pennies

Today's ride: 41 km (25 miles)
Total: 1,324 km (822 miles)

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