Bri's post included a lot of feelings from our first month of so here. Now she's getting acclimated. The picture above is her hailing a cab outside our apartment. She wasn't having luck getting a cab going west so she decided to stand in the middle of the road and try hailing a cab going either way.
What we figured out quite early is that if you just keep walking, don't stop, don't change speeds, just keep your path, everything will avoid you. It's really kind of cool. I haven't tried it but I'm pretty confident I could walk across four lanes of busy traffic and ignoring a few (hundred) horns cause little to no disruption in the flow of things. Things would keep going. They'd wonder what the laowei was doing but they'd all perform a synchronized swerve and continue unfazed.
This brings us to some noteworthy cultural differences. The driving culture in the US whether your honest enough to admit it or not is that we follow the traffic rules (at least the important ones). In our culture if everyone follows the rules then nobody gets hurt. Think about it. You are sitting at an intersection and the light turns green...do you look both ways before you cross? I doubt it. (This post will be completely lost on our Eastern Colorado following who are trying to remember the last time they saw a light at an intersection) The point I'm trying to make is that at home people pay less attention to what everyone around them is doing on the road. They worry about staying in their lane, about following the rules that apply to them and they hope everyone else is doing the same. If we all do it together, nobody gets hurt.
Shanghai driving is the yang to the previously described ying. There are traffic rules here, its just nobody follows them. There are bike and scooter lanes, cars, vans, city busses and construction vehicles moving around at all times and nobody follows rules. (The only rule that is consistently followed is stop on red. This is due to a lot of traffic cameras.) Cabbies will make a u-turn anywhere, it doesn't matter if it is a busy street. Cars will pull into the wrong lane if they can pass someone who is traveling to slow ahead of them. Nobody lets anybody into their lane, instead you just have a game of chicken. Who can get their bumper further ahead without hitting another car in the process. The funny thing is that it seems to work. We've seen one accident since we've been here between two scooters and nothing between larger vehicles. I'm sure they happen but in this system everyone pays complete attention to what is going on around them (can you believe it?) and despite the craziness that goes on everyone arrives safely.
A case to make my point. The other morning we were riding along in an automobile (this song popped into my head while I was writing this, now I hope its stuck in your head for awhile) when a bus coming out of a stop immediately pulled across two lanes into our lane. My initial response would have been to brake and then call the bus driver a jackass while I check my blindspot and merge over. I'd probably also check his license plate to see what state he's from, I know you guys do that too. Our cab driver moved over a lane and never let off the accelerator, he already knew nobody was beside us and furthermore was expecting the jackass driving the bus to do something like that. In fact, here he is not even a jackass, the bus driver is just a guy in a bigger vehicle going where he needs to go, so pay attention and get out the way bitch get out the way. (That last line is a reference to a song for some of the younger generations. If it confuses or offends you it should read, so pay attention and get out of his way, please make any alterations necessary, this blog is try to reach a diverse audience)
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