Todays Culture Lesson

[owenkrout]

Building construction... Have to add that to the list, it is an interesting point.

 

I can remember seeing two semi flat beds (mostly what they have here) that had broken in half from the overload. Both on back roads where the shock loading from the huge potholes contributed to the failure.

 

But then I used to drive trucks for farmers in the US that were almost as badly overloaded. Like most farm help, I never had the proper liscense. You just learn to drive anything with wheels and an engine.

[PJ]

All,

 

I have never in my life seen anything like the drivers in Beijing. Our driver would cross the median constantly in heavy traffic just to dart a few cars ahead, and other drivers would be doing the same. I was constantly scared for my life riding in that taxi!!!

 

P.J.

[lele]

Aloha from Hawaii,

Do not forget gridlock.  It is faster to walk in the center of Beijing than to take a taxi during the

rush hour. 

The most important part of your book should be eating.  The only way to demonstrate your interest

in another culture is to eat what they eat.  To eat with chopsticks is more important than to speak

mandarin.

Annakuen'GG

A wonderful idea from an interesting thread!

 

Some observations I have personally made as I have traveled:

 

1. the traffic in Thailand and Vietnam is far worse than even the worst places I have seen in China. However, the large difference is that there are fewer cars and many more motorcycles and took-tooks, and other types of vehicles. Yet, people here are also much more likely to be willing to accept walking distances when needed.

 

2. the fact that china is building public transit is a huge help. And people here are much more willing to use crammed public facilities, especially that although there is a personal loss, that it tends to benefit all people. Luckily Boston has descent public transportation.

 

3. Europe and Asia seem to have more options of getting around than in the US. Yet, the US is as wealthy as the EU. I then used this as a means of working to better understand our cultural differences, and the impacts that these have in relation to our environment and daily lives! Although a plane is much more convenient, we tend to miss many of the wonders along the way, as well as spending more money. I really wish that we could do this better here in the US.

 

4. I agree that chopsticks are important. I have found that in terms of food, the fact that I enjoy eating lajio and can often outdo any Chinese around me, has helped enormously. I think however that it is our willingness to try in as many ways as possible. This includes food, language, techniques, acceptance of tradition and history and ethics, and learning more broadly about our fellow community of human collective history!

 

I have never seen myself and my darling as coming from different perspectives, but instead each having a new opportunity to learn from the other what their experiences can do better than the other's and adapting these better aspects from each other. I definitely have used this thread to help in this way.

 

Now, if we can only use our experience with pollution to help them stave this off, while we can learn from their aspects of community and willingness to accept that working together can allow benefit to all, whereas everyone getting a car harms the rest of us together!

 

Just some thoughts...what does everyone else think?

Sorry that I seem to ramble.

[beijingjenny]

What you forget is licences can be, and are, bought. Anyone can get one. And I don't think it's that hard for foreigners to drive - I know several who couldn't read Chinese who own cars. My husband says anyone with any license can... don't know if that's really true though.

 

But v. funny about the horns. I've often said that horns work as brakes here ... the scariest thing to me is lane changing - speed racing in and out of lanes without looking just cuz it might give them a two second advantage.

 

And I've only definitely seen one body on the street, but my friends have seen several time and again.

[ed and ying]

About horns - my favorite is you can drive in China with out steering wheel if you have a horn !

 

I am not sure if license is the issue. No doubt there is a flood of drivers with no exprience or skill. But , I have never seen any effective enforcement of any traffic law in China. Just last month in BJ a policeman stopped short, my coworkers in van stopped short, just missing the police car, but the guy behind them hit the van. The policeman got out of his car looked around and drove off.

 

I have seen a few bodies, from encounters of cars with bike/trikes. Numerous instances of taxi or driver "brush" someone.

 

I tell everyone the most dangerous thing in China is trying to cross a street

 

Ed

[oregonknl]

None of us should assume that a horrible traffic accident can't happen to us in China.

 

Fei's older brother, much loved, and the only male sibling died in a traffic accident...

 

I saw what looked like a fatal accident in Xi'an when I visited there..

 

as a result, I think, Fei is totally controling when in a taxi ---- she will routinely tell the cabbie; "I won't pay you if you don't do what I say" ---- and she means it --- she has stiffed cabbies on several occasions while I was riding with her.. (justified, I might add)

[beijingjenny]

Kim. So sorry, that's terrible. Good for Fei, being so strict. I never assume it won't happen to me, always terrified though I do have a habit of taking too many risks crossing the street, even scaring my husband (sometimes you can never cross otherwise!). I was in an accident in Wuhan. We were sooo lucky to be alive. My friend's nose was shattered, my knees battered, and spent two weeks in the hospital with her. Still think we were so lucky (not sure how lucky she feels since her nose is still crooked - says China was trying to kill her, as something dropped on her as soon as she got back home to BJ and later a village dog bit her...!).

 

I remember my friend once saying how SARS probably saved lives. If you consider how few people actually died of that compared to the lower accident deaths during that period, I believe he's correct. Maybe it's horrible to say, but that time was pure heaven ... nobody outside or driving...

 

I agree, Ed, enforcement is one big thing. A work driver was one night going on about the all the rules of the road and saying "foreigners always think we have no rules, but we do". I was trying to think how to say "but you don't enforce them" when he admitted it himself...

[oregonknl]

Jenny,

 

Well, what your friend said about SARS --- first time I ever heard a: "lets look on the bright side ~!" about that! But I guess he had a statistically valid point... Hummmmm...... did also drive down the cost of airfare and hotels in China for a while....

 

[lele]

None of us should assume that a horrible traffic accident can't happen to us in China.

 

Fei's older brother, much loved, and the only male sibling died in a traffic accident... 

 

I saw what looked like a fatal accident in Xi'an when I visited there..

 

as a result, I think,  Fei is totally controling when in a taxi ---- she will routinely tell the cabbie;  "I won't pay you if you don't do what I say"  ---- and she means it ---  she has stiffed cabbies on several occasions while I was riding with her.. (justified, I might add)

This is a large worry. I am sorry for people who have personally lost...

 

In fact, when I entered the country for the first time, SARS was in high season, but I was not worried about that. I knew that my chance of being in a fatal traffic accident were more than 1000 times greater than dying of SARS.

 

However, thankfully, I have been lucky so far (although I have nearly had a few heart attacks on the road...but none of them ever panned out).

 

I hope that everyone is safe and that we all never have to experience the tragedy of an accident again.

[Razbre]

Hers a link to Sina.com....an english chinese paper...I usually read it every other day....there was some statistics on road kill a while ago....it really wa unbeliveable how many....well...ok...believable the way people drive there...I tell Yunling that people get shot here for some of the things that drivers do there...

Well....anyways....a good paper.....take a peek at it....everyday news....from car accidents to executions of drug deallers....to Miss China and the GZ drought...

[Razbre]

opppppppssssss....forgot the damn link....

 

http://english.sina.com/news/china/index.shtml

[John & Hai Yan]

None of us should assume that a horrible traffic accident can't happen to us in China.

 

Fei's older brother, much loved, and the only male sibling died in a traffic accident...  

 

My fiancee Hai Yan became a widow, when her former Army husband died in an accident seven years ago. Four people were in his Army vehicle, when it was hit by a truck, and three out of the four died. She also witnessed a pedestrian being struck by a car and killed.

 

Having said that, I had my most horrifying road experiences in Vietnam. I have travelled in 5 Asian countries. Best to worse were Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, China, then Vietnam. Laos was the only country, that I felt relatively safe on the road. At least that has been my experience.

[lele]

None of us should assume that a horrible traffic accident can't happen to us in China.

 

Fei's older brother, much loved, and the only male sibling died in a traffic accident...  

 

My fiancee Hai Yan became a widow, when her former Army husband died in an accident seven years ago. Four people were in his Army vehicle, when it was hit by a truck, and three out of the four died. She also witnessed a pedestrian being struck by a car and killed.

 

Having said that, I had my most horrifying road experiences in Vietnam. I have travelled in 5 Asian countries. Best to worse were Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, China, then Vietnam. Laos was the only country, that I felt relatively safe on the road. At least that has been my experience.

In Laos myself, I agree that the trafic on the road was not too much of a problem.

 

The only problem that I encountered were the rebels who were SHOOTING RIFLES at our bus! We were lucky and got away without an incident. However, I heard that a few days later, a few people were killed on a bus along the same route.

 

And in Cambodia, the roads again were not to cluttered (unlike Vietnam, which I also feel is far worse than China). However, the road was of such poor quality that I was surprised that we made it to our destination only obtaining 1 flat tire along the way!

 

But, what a wonderful experience I had in each case...and I am glad to have been lucky enough to have made it through (although the next time I go to Laos, I think that I may fly instead, or at least take the boat further than just Luang Prabang).

 

However, it is also scary here too. In the US last year, more than 42,000 people died as a result of car accidents (there are no figures about how many were seriously injured). *sigh*

[oregonknl]

"Having said that, I had my most horrifying road experience in Viet Nam..."

 

 

Hummmmmm............. John, you may want to qualify that ----- based on the time you were there.... Recent? or as a: "Young Man" ?

[ed and ying]

I not worry too much in the big cities and freeways. Unfortunately I also get to travel the 2 lanes outside the cities. It is pretty wild. Just hope for a lucky day.