She's Got Wheels

Here's Leah with the electric scooter she got a couple days ago.  She took along a couple of experienced friends to help make the purchase, and now she's joined the multitudes of scooter-riders in our city, both Chinese and expats.  Drivers here seem much more used to sharing the road with two-wheeled riders than back home.
     Top speed for this scooter is...well, I'm not sure at the moment, but it's modest.  Leah says it's quite unsatisfactory for some young males, who'd rather have a gas-powered version that can go lots faster.  You don't see many of those around, though, because they're illegal in our city.  That keeps the air a little cleaner.
     Of course a bike would be an even greener choice than an electric scooter.  I find a bike is more than sufficient to get around, although people say when it turns hot and humid again in a few months, I may not think so.  I was all set to buy a bike for Leah this week.  But she wasn't interested.  I suppose the biggest problem with a bike right now is that it's a Mom thing.  And like many 17 year olds, Leah is trying hard to be Not Mom.  How nice that she's normal!
     One advantage of scooters over bikes is that they're more social--lots of opportunity for ride-sharing--so that aspect is a big draw for teenagers.  Last night a bunch of Leah's friends got together for Taco Tuesday at a local restaurant.  (Even here, Uncle Tom!)  3 kids fit on that scooter seat when it was time to go home.
     Scooters are relatively inexpensive here.  We won't be paying any more taxi fare to go to and from school this year, and that savings alone just about covers the cost of the new wheels.
     The school taxi situation had gotten a bit aggravating.  Finding one to come home after school has gotten more and more challenging, but at least in the mornings Leah was supposed to have a regular taxi driver to get to school.  However, the regular driver has changed a number of times, sometimes there were substitute drivers who showed up without warning, a few times no one has shown up, and it was a pain to get them to issue a receipt.  All of this is complicated when they don't speak English and Leah speaks very little Chinese.  Last week I was quite irritated to discover that the substitute driver during the first week in January had kept the fee Leah had prepaid for the entire month.  Our expat liaison had no idea who this mystery driver was, and she was unwilling to make an effort to find out.  So I paid a second time.  It will be a relief that Leah won't have to rely anymore on taxis to go back and forth to school.