It's the Little Things

Standing between the lanes of mid-morning traffic, my concentration is focused on the cars coming towards me with no time to think about how dangerous the simplest things can be.

In China many things seem familiar from the outside, but are bewildering once you wade in. Nothing exemplifies this better than crossing the street in Xi’an. Some blocks are too long for people to walk to the corner, so they have provided crosswalks between blocks, across 6 lanes of traffic, without a stoplight.

The technique is to wait for an opening, cross the first lane, and stand between lanes until there is an opening in the next. It’s Frogger with slower hops. Fortunately, there is no time limit either, so I am free to wait until a local shows up that also wants to cross.

The short grey-haired Asian lady to my left does not provide any more protection from the tons of metal racing past than do the lines of the cross walk, but since I am using her as a guide I might as well use her as a shield.

Reaching the median, I do not switch sides with her, which leaves me unshielded, but only because it would make obvious that a little old lady was helping me cross the street.

My first weekend in Shanghai, I could not find any correlation between the motion of the crowds and the color of the crossing lights. I was so out of step that I almost walked in front of a limousine. Only a friendly hand stopped me from becoming a hood ornament.

In Beijing, the system was easier to decipher, bicycle lanes could be crossed against the light, and car lanes with the light. It quickly became habit; to the point that when I was stuck behind a group of 4 people waiting for the light to change before they would cross anything, I cursed them to myself as “stupid tourists.”

The rules for cars in China are different too; so different that the government recommends living in the country 6 months before getting a license. I rode on one street in Shanghai where repeatedly 3 lanes entered an intersection and only 2 exited. The left lane was not a turn lane, it just ceased to be.

On an expressway in Beijing, the cab I was in passed between 2 vehicles that were in adjacent lanes. One of my cab drivers in Xi’an liked to pass while turning, with an aggressiveness that would impress Michael Schumacher.

There were many times that an accident seemed inevitable, but the crash never came. I only saw one accident scene. A taxi had been rear-ended in a hotel parking lot.

There are traffic officers in China. Every “people’s security” car that I saw had its lights flashing as it flowed with the traffic, but none of the other drivers paid any attention. I also saw a number of traffic officers on foot, but, watching them ignore the chaos around them, I couldn’t guess what their job duties were.

Nowhere is pedestrian life more complex than Xi’an. The downtown area, enclosed by ancient city walls, is comfortably sized for walking. The 12 foot wide sidewalks are inviting, and no doubt once were safe. But government efforts to develop Western China have brought money into Xi’an, and money means cars.

All of these cars have no place to park, so they park on the sidewalks. They enter at intersections and drive on them until they find an empty parking spot.

Perhaps permitting cars to drive on the sidewalks does compensate drivers for having to share the road with legalized jaywalkers. Whatever the rationalization, a stroll in Xi’an is never without excitement.