Peddling Through Beijing

As China rapidly embraces a carcentric, luxury  lifestyle, small makeshift bicycle repair shops are  struggling to survive.

- Matt Moir

Pundits and politicians from all over the globe like to talk about the metaphoric rise of China. Cui, a 51-year-old bicycle repairman, has had a front row seat.

On a hot, humid June afternoon, Cui is sitting on a toolbox under an oversized beach umbrella. Tools are spread across his section of sidewalk near a busy intersection. Cui is the proprietor of a sidewalk bicycle shop in southwest Beijing.

“The area has changed so much. Business is,” he pauses, “OK. Before I came to Beijing I was a farmer in Henan, but I didn’t make a lot of money. It was seasonal work and it wasn’t consistent.”

In a typical day, Cui helps seven or eight customers. He charges 20 yuan (about $3) for a tune-up, and earns about 20,000 yuan per year. It isn’t a lot of money—only about $3,000—but it’s enough, for now, to support himself, his wife and two children.

But can businesses like Cui’s survive in modern China? Beijing and other large cities across the country are rapidly modernizing, and more Chinese are embracing a North American-style car culture. The reality is that Cui’s enterprise and other makeshift bicycle repair shops face an increasingly tenuous future.