Curious Contraptions

~ A Letter from China ~

I’ve become fascinated over the past few weeks with the myriad inventive ways that the Chinese have
contrived to move themselves and their things around. In this letter I’m calling them ‘curious contraptions’
because it would be strange indeed to see them motoring around on the streets of Toronto. But in China
they’re ubiquitous. The photos here were all taken within a few minutes’ walk of my own place; all you
need to do here is look around to see another strange machine passing by. They’d be better if I’d photo-
graphed more people sitting on and riding in their conveyances, of course. But I’m too shy to ask them and
I don’t have the Chinese vocabulary. I hope the photos are interesting for you to look at anyway.