Jumping Off the Bridge in China – The Weird Side of the Internet

Jumping Off the Bridge in China – The Weird Side of the Internet – by Liam Sweeny.

I have some phobias. One of them is heights. It’s minor. I’ll become dizzy if I look up at a very tall building. But it’s not a freakout thing. If I’m in the Corning Tower observation deck, I don’t feel any anxiety. Mainly because it’s behind thick glass. So maybe it’s a pseudophobia, I don’t know. But it’s there. You’ll never see me skydiving (not willingly). I wonder if I’m afraid of heights or afraid of depths.

There’s a bridge in China called the Huajiang Grand Canyon. It covers a drop of over 2,000 feet. And people have decided to bungee jump off of it. No surprise, but would you be surprised to know that they’re going to do it ropelessly?

Yes. Ropeless bungee jumping. Doesn’t that sound like jumping of a bridge with just a touch more fanfare? That’s what I thought when I first heard it, like it was just gourmet suicide. But no, you land on a safety net. In fact, there are different nets for different jumps. And it’s cheaper than regular bungee jumping, probably because you don’t need the main piece of equipment.

Can you imaging jumping a hundred and fifty feet onto a safety net, and you just bounce right out? Chinese officials could, and as a result, they’ve delayed the opening.

I’ve noticed that China is often on the weird side of the internet, because China seems to be cool with a lot of stuff. In America, you could never just jump off a major bridge. Just to get a soap box derby going, you need to fill out permits, have a credit-check done, get bonded, produce all of your medical records since you were three and then… pay filing fees.

Some day I’d like to go to China just to participate in all the weirdness. This is my pledge, this is my vow.

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