Brettern

(Xiaoliuqiu, 4/14)

Xaoliuqiu is small. Taking a walk the first night, we made it half around. Yet it’s too big to keep walking for the days to come, so we got what was offered us as scooters and/or e-bikes, small electric mopeds whose potemkin pedals were just another way to accelerate the motor fully.

Cruising around, we realized how many different words there are for “fast driving” in German. Taking a shaky path towards the east coast, for example, we thought of “brettern” and “braken,” two words that invoke an element of danger, bretter more towards oneself, braken towards others. You’d do the latter in a pedestrian zone, the former along the very path we were taking…