Everyday Life and Biking at Tsinghua University

One has to get used to every new place - this is also true for Tsinghua University, which has a n enormously huge campus covering over 2.6 square kilometers. Thus, the only reasonable way to get around is by bike. Given the fact that the university has about 30,000 students who only go by bike and about 15,000 faculty and staff who mostly go by bike, this results in about 40,000 bikes on campus. As a result, every bike would still have a generous space of about 65 square meters - unfortunately, the university has lots of parks and houses without bikes, which makes everything more concentrated...

The heavy bike traffic paired with aggressive buses and cars is something unusual for Western minds - nevertheless, after some weeks it becomes quite usual to be nearly hit by one bus a day...

Even though I only managed to grab a very light example of biking at Tsinghua on film, it still gives you an idea about how everyday life works here.