Successful Fuel Run

Today's weather: High = 10 Low = 2
Full Sunshine

Such nice weather on a weekend could only mean one thing. Get on the scooter and do that long-anticipated fuel run. Given the year-long regulation that prohibits gas stations from selling fuel to unregistered scooters and motorbikes within the city center, and an ongoing crackdown on scooters in general, then creative methods need to be devised in order to get a reliable fuel source and to keep on riding into the sunshine.

There is obviously a thriving black market for gasoline. There is also a black market for RMB to US dollar currency exchanges, and a black market for pretty much everything in China. In general, it should be abundantly clear that micromanaging a society with a gazillion rules and documents is doomed to failure, because there will always be those who bend the rules as they see fit, people who interpret rules a certain way, and those who simply find ways around the rules.

The black market for fuel costs a little more than the gas station, it is closer, and the fuel readily available. But it still involves calling up the guys and heading over there week after week. The scooter tank only holds a week's supply of fuel at best which is the root of the problem.

So I picked up a large gas container a few weeks ago and it can hold at least a month's supply. As expected, filling this thing up wasn't going to be easy. The original plan was to head across the border to Jiangsu province where I've had some success before. But I got too lazy and instead headed out into the suburbs closer to my house.

Not surprisingly, the gas stations out in the Shanghai suburbs refused to fill up the can, citing the need for some permission document issued by my work unit. Screw that. But they had no problem filling up the bike. The interesting thing was they immediately assumed I wanted to fill up the gas can first, and said no way. Then when I asked to fill up the bike instead, they had no problem doing it.

I used this strategy to my advantage. I went from one gas station to the next, filling up the bike, siphoning into the gas can, filling up the bike again, and so forth. Eventually the can was full and I filled the bike up one last time for good measure.

The whole run only took an hour and a half. According to my estimates, I should be OK now until May.