安全第一 / An quan di yi
I’m always struck by how dangerous the environment is here. Today I was struck by that fact a little harder than I might have liked.
In my room at the Zhuanjialou ( 专家楼) there’s a closet that opens onto a three floor drop to the basement, while giving access to the building’s plumbing. If I were a sleep walker I might be worried about it, but I’m not.
The route I run (except for the beautiful Huayuan /Yuan Dynasty dirt wall park, which is wonderful in every way) is full of obstacles—open manholes, places where the road is dug up, etc. This morning, while running along a detour (because the sidewalk was covered with pipe for whatever caused them to dig up the adjoining road, I was foolishly looking down to watch where I was stepping, which caused me to fail to see the thin wire that ran across the path for no apparent reason. I was clotheslined by it in the middle of my face, knocking off my classes and giving me a bit of a shock. Luckily I’m a very slow runner. I once saw someone get knocked off his bicycle at night when he ran across a similar wire running out into the road.
The title means “Safety is #1.”