So the World Walking Day is coming to China. I only know this because I got an e-mail asking me if I would like to join in on the event.

I told them to ask 谢老师 (Teacher Xie) instead, because I thought he deserved the attention better.  Then eventually, after a bunch of e-mails going back and forth between me and them, they asked me to shoot a short video for them first.

I thought it was a great idea. I hadn’t done anything like that in a long time! So I came up with a great plan involving classical poems, sunrises, sunsets, and of course a time lapse of me walking around. I would put my DSLR’s to full work!

But they wouldn’t have it. Instead, I was supposed to recite a tongue twister along with a very long piece of rhyming walking advice, and present myself in a kind of quirky way in front of the town hall.

If there’s one thing I don’t like it’s “quirky” foreigners on Chinese TV.

I said no. No tongue twister, no quirkiness. No rhyming verses about the benefits of taking the stairs instead of the escalator! I don’t even have a camera to shoot that kind of video, I usually shoot stills.

The next day their shirt was in my mailbox. Yellow letters spelled “World Walking Day” on it, and I suddenly felt like I had let somebody down.

So this morning at 7am I put on the shirt, grabbed my little camera, ran to the town hall and made a videotape:

The video is grainy and grey, the sound is almost non-existent, and you can clearly tell that I am not very comfortable in front of the camera.

“Hey, this is 雷克 (Leike) from Germany, you can call me 老雷 (Laolei). In 2007 and 2008 I walked from 北京 (Beijing) to 乌鲁木齐 (Ürümqi), at that time I liked walking very much. Today I don’t like it that much anymore, that’s why I got a bit fat. This year the World Walking Day is going to be held in China. I am very happy about that, and I’d like to support everyone in walking a bit more, in order not to get fat like me.”

How quirky.

Soundtrack: Bon Jovi – “You Give Love A Bad Name”