Ready, Set...RUN!

Let’s talk traffic. Traffic lanes? What are those? Right of way?...Doesn’t exist. Traffic lights? What traffic lights?

Welcome to China.

To be fair, different areas may be completely different from the experiences I have had considering China’s vastness and cultural differences. The issues I will discuss in this piece relate specifically to my experiences in both Shanghai and Qinhuangdao which is also a city.

Having been born in New York and mostly always having lived near the city, I am used to the taxis and busy traffic life of the more metropolitan areas. What I am not used to however is the fact that pedestrians here do not have the right of way. In fact, good luck trying to figure out who does. In the streets of Shanghai it is common to witness near “death by crossing”. Pedestrians don’t matter. Cars and taxis and buses do. When crossing the street, you essentially cross one half of the street and then wait in the middle until the other half clears up, but occasionally it can be more of a 1/3^rd,  1/3^rd, 1/3^rd pattern. I found this to be one of the most frustrating things here in China. Every time I cross the street, I hold my breath and pray that I don’t get hit by a huge bus. When going out with students here in Qinhuangdao, they always hold my hand or link arms with me to help me get across and I tell them “There is only one rule: Don’t kill the teacher…or no English class next week!” Although they laugh and find it funny, it is a very real fear that I have. So what is the proper way to cross, you may ask? Just find another group of locals and cross when they do. That way, if the cars see all of you, they’ll be forced to swerve rather than hit you.

Taken from Google Images

Next traffic situation we should discuss is the idea of traffic lanes. Shanghai was quite an experience. I once had the privilege of taking a taxi from one end of Shanghai to the other early morning around 7 am. There is only one word I can think of in English to describe it: Clusterfuck. Pardon my French but seriously, it was chaos to the Nth degree. I simply could not understand why a street that was supposed to have 2 traffic lanes suddenly had 5 (one of which included the scooter/motorcycle lane). This made absolutely no sense to me. It was worse than NY… by a lot. And what happens when a scooter or motorcycle gets stuck in this kind of traffic? Why drive on the sidewalk of course! See, I told you pedestrians don’t matter. As a pedestrian in Shanghai, even walking on the sidewalk you still have to watch for scooters that decided to drive right behind you. Such a dangerous situation and they swear that they are the ones who are right. They get angry and curse at you in Chinese if you don’t move.

Taken from Google Images

As far as traffic lights are concerned, those are just decorations and extra ornamentation to make the streets look more colorful perhaps. I once exclaimed in my loudest English “That was a  traffic light, did you not notice it was red?” to the taxi driver but of course, he didn’t understand me. The number of times I’ve nearly died in a taxi? Ummm, I’ve stopped counting to be honest but yes, I’ve been in nearly 40 accidents by now and I’ve only been here for one month.

Oh and Taxis here have random shift-change times so sometimes you come out of the grocery store and instead of taking a cab, you get in this rickety, bumpy “box-on-a-bike” called a car. It charges more than a taxi and is the least comfortable ride you will ever experience.