Car-free Asia

Huzzah! Again, I say, Huzzah! No cars in Asia? There just simply is no downside. Taxi drivers would not mobilize to pummel discourteous passengers. There would be no one run over (and backed-up over and then run over again) by a gravel truck again. Every child's dream of having a pony could now come true. Depressed rickshaw shares would soar once again. So, how do we do it? I wasn't too sure, but sure enough, The China Post came to my rescue with the story.

By riding a bicycle. Of course! But it must be from Beijing to Paris (Paris is in Asia?). Participants will be arriving in China from Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand via the Kon-Tiki II and will make the 100,000 kilometer trek starting June 10.

Evidently, yoga or tai chi also play a part in this. Co-founder of the event, Wu Yi-ting (吳懿婷), explains: the tour is about "celebrating better mobility," - I'm starting to lose my enthusiasm.

This trip [Car-free Asia Tour] will use no motor vehicles and aims to usher in a new future for transportation," she added.

As it should be!

Most participants have indicated they will cycle all the way. Others will take trains and ferries on some sections of the journey.

What? Oh, I see. They'll probably use coal-fired engines. Whoo! Almost lost me completely. But I now that I see that Canadian musician Matthew Lien mysteriously jumps into the report to say,

If we don't change the way we live, we'll have to build a memorial hall for the life we lost,

I feel much better. We already have enough problems with memorials, we don't want to deal with all the hassles of building a new one.

As much as I applaud their vision, I feel that their means for realizing it lack any meat. They neglected to mention scooters, motorcycles and factories. At four months for each trip, it would take at least a year before we could be rid of the infernal internal combustion killers. Solution? A Free EMP-Strike Asia Day.