Aside from being a potential National Enquirer headline to rival one of my all-time favorites, "Woman Gives Birth to Head of Lettuce," this actually happened in Yinchuan.
I was going to spend 2 1/2 weeks here, waiting for my friend to return from a side trip to Hong Kong. That is enough time to make it worth buying a cheap bike.
We were looking for the location of the mini-bus that takes people to the forests of Helan Shan. We were sitting on some steps looking at a map of Yinchuan.
A medical intern approached and asked if he could help. The map was in English and he had some difficulty with it. Finally we decided to go to a bus stop and take bus #24 to the North Long Distance Bus Station. While we were still at the bus stop, the intern, Hongwei, came riding by on a bike. Chen asked if he knew where the alley was where bikes, we had heard, were sold. He said, "Take mine." On the spot, he offered to let me borrow his bike while I was in town, for no charge. We had only met twenty minutes earlier. He didn't know my last name or where I was staying. He offered his bike even though it would put him on foot.
