China Traffic

People ask me all the time why I love China. My answers never seems to be what is expected. It’s the little things that make me smile no matter how awful my day has been or the bad mood I am in. (and believe me there have been plenty of those days) My honest to God favorite part of my new town of lain tang is the crosswalk man. In China people are too detail oriented to be satisfied with the standard walk/ don’t walk flashing light. In lian tang the little man is animated and he tells you how fast you need to walk. The best is the strut setting. The little crosswalk light has the proud strut that I can’t see without standing a little taller. Everytime me and my friend see it we try to walk at the same pace as the light and say, “strut carefully!” Then when the traffic light is about to change the little man gets faster and faster and end in a panic furry to get across. The panic is justified! I literally almost got hit by a bus the other day. I was with my Italian friend and the little man started to run so I started to hurry across the road as well. She stopped me and said, “:in my country they have to stop for us in the crosswalk, is it the same in America?” right then we turned to see a bus coming at us at full speed and we jumped back into the place a median should be! It is

literally a game of frogger every time we cross the road. I often feel that if I have 2 or more Chinese people crossing in front of me, I can be safe using them as a human shield. I should be able to run out of the way by the time the cars run over 2 other people. Roz is convinced Chinese people have magical road crossing powers. They just walk calmly and stand on the white line in between lanes or do the China scurry. It’s not really a full run, but it’s a lot of movement without your feet ever leaving the ground. It almost gives the appearance of running but without any of the energy. It is sometimes enough to make the bus drivers wait for you to get on, but mostly just gives the foreigners something to laugh at. I do not have the power – I see my life flash before my eyes jump out of the way of on-coming traffic at least weekly. Maybe it is because the Chinese people are so skinny they are literally as wide as the white lines on the road so the cars can pass freely around them. When I stand on the white line I have to step backwards or forwards in order for the cars to pass. The buses see me and lay on the horn as if I am taking up their whole lane. The math stereotype is taken to new measure on the traffic lights for big intersections. Instead of the rudimentary red green yellow lights they have all digital count downs. The stoplight is literally red flashing numbers counting how long until you can go. 130 second red count down then 60 seconds of green and 10 of yellow. I don’t know which would be worse for sitting at a light the that seems to take all day or staring angrily and the 120seconds that seems to never move. Honestly if they had that in DC it would help me time my commute in which I proudly completed my morning tasks of eating breakfast, drying my hair and doing my makeup. If I knew I had 2 minutes at a stop light, I could have a whole eye done instead of relying on the honking cars around me to know when the light changed. Humm maybe DC isn’t ready for that kind of detail! I have seen way too many people shaving and reading books on my DC commute.