Travel funnies 2014 - China
Torrey Orton
March 20, 2014
As long as 35 years ago on my first
to China I noted some at the time amazing facts of street behaviour between
vehicles, mostly bicycles, and pedestrians, as well as between vehicle riders
and drivers themselves. In my field notes of those days (10 Oct – 25 Nov, 1979)
I remarked at length such things as what follows here, modified but not
moderated by the shift from the largely self-powered transport (bicycle) of
those days to the dominance of self-driven transport in these days (cars and
motor scooters – electric and petrol).
The underlying theme here for me is
cultural constants and their consistency under pressure of material change. Cultural
resilience shows up even now in simple ways: five days ago one Chinese
colleague from 35 years ago pointed out, unprompted by us, that her floor of a
three year old apartment tower had six flats on it, numbered 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, and
7 as do all the other floors in the 25 story building except for level four
which doesn’t exist. Guess why? The number four in Chinese sounds like the word
for death, which should never be spoken lightly. Our aversion to 13 is a weak
sibling of that four.
“… a Nathan Road cabbie in the way.”
Six days earlier we were on Nathan
Road, Hong Kong on a fully peopled Friday arvo with barely a car’s width of
passage on our taxi’s route. Another taxi was ensconced in a no stopping zone, the
driver standing by his closed door about a meter into the available roadway
looking at something in the near distance without the slightest glance our way
and just stood there as we passed almost brushing his jacket. Not looking and
not flinching are the key facts. This behaviour has been repeated in my view
dozens of times in the following week in Shanghai and Beijing. I have never
successfully learned it until almost now, though I started 35 years ago and had
a two year stint as pedestrian and cyclist in Beijing in the early 80’S, with
repeated medium term stays in Shanghai in the mid ‘90’s and early Noughties.
In the last week I have consciously
tried to mimic it on street corners and crossings. The learning requires two
acts of faith: that I have the right to take any space I choose if I can get to
it first, and second that others will respect that right by giving way or
altering their approach trajectory not to collide once I’ve made my move. At
the corner of Huaihai Lu and Maoming Lu in downtown Shanghai one morning I
crossed with the pedestrian light as three cars were waiting to turn into my
path (as they legally may when their light is red) and I managed not to look at
the nearest driver or to pause in my walk while the driver started his creeping
turn, timing it so that I felt the pant leg of my trailing foot brushed
slightly by the passing car going through the turn. And, did not feel a rush of
fear at that perception!!
This rule system applies to any public
passing, not just vehicular, in China. I know the rules and only this trip have
noticed their working beauty in the intensely loaded pathways of Beijing and
Shanghai. They really work, until they don’t! (the story of which is recorded
daily and annually, locally and nationally, in traffic accident reports). But
as they are working they make for a driving and walking experience of
continuous flow which is essential to progress in a traffic-jammed economy.
Unfortunately Beijing and Shanghai are not far away from all day gridlock. The
rule for managing that are unclear.
BTW, these rules are not just some
fantasy of mine. I have tested them repeatedly with PRC origin Chinese and
never had my understanding of them challenged. Interpretations of their
application, of course, differ because correct use requires exquisite judgment
about (1) one’s ability to take the front position anywhere and (2) the other’s
capacity to respect that decision (the stopping distance judgment) or override
it with incontrovertible power. The latter effect can be achieved by daring in
many circumstances. The balance of power tilts somewhat in pedestrians’
direction because the law favours them over cars: a car smashed pedestrian is
presumed to have been in the right. Of course, having been smashed one may not
be around to enjoy the presumptive right, so we’re back to judgment. In the
process of field=testing my understanding of these rules I’ve gotten spontaneous
feedback from others that they apply in other Asian cities, too.
Self-organising (dis) order??
It is not surprising that
Westerners have so much trouble in China. We cannot accept that humanity can be
run by such rules and to be placed in the full and open command of the rules is
radically disempowering. They cannot easily be learned because they are so
counter-intuitive. Try driving on the “wrong” side of the road for a sampler of
the personal change demands.
The same challenge is also the case
for immigrant or tourist Chinese in Australia. They may just step off the curb
wherever it strikes them, working automatically from the understanding of their
origin which will get them killed here, and /or the object of vilification by Oz
locals. Mirroring western amazement at their home town behaviour, they often
remark on how rule abiding Melbournians are by contrast with home. We stop at
stop lights without police supervision and police presence is remarkably less
noticeable than in China.
I used to use an exercise I called
Beijing Bus in cultural awareness training for Australians going to work in
China or having Chinese colleagues coming to work with them in Australia. It
was a usually successful attempt to induce the feeling of oppressive crowding
which is typical of Chinese city life. It gave entry to a world where not
taking control of your space means someone else will without compunction.
A stray phone… “No one’s in charge here…it’s whacky”
Another version of this story
occurs on planes. A few days ago we were enroute to Beijing…a two hour run from
Shanghai. While the airline gave extremely clear and careful instructions about
turning off all phones completely on take-off and landing, a number of
people were close to the wire on take-off and one started up his tool on touchdown
well before we’d taxied to the gate. The hostess seated two seats in front of
and at eye contact range said nothing. The hostess on our side looked away from
the offender as did her colleague. She subsequently was shamed by passengers
who jumped up to get first go at the luggage compartments well before taxiing
stopped – another major no-no clearly stated by staff beforehand. Her shame was
expressed by her head hung down and away from subsequent offenders of her
effort to remind the first ones of the airline rules, which they disregarded.
This passenger behaviour has always
been my experience on passenger planes in China. It has a historical precursor
– the Beijing Bus again – perhaps the original of what is now known in the West
as the psychosocial distortion FOMO (fear of missing out). For the Chinese this
has been a well-founded fear, not declining with increased wealth. I
commiserated a bit more with the hosties dilemma of public disregard as I
watched the mostly Chinese masses at Beijing airport wander through outgoing
carryon inspection talking on their mobiles at all stages in the process…while
surrounded with clear multi-lingual and visual exhortations of some vigour to
keep their mobiles buttons!!! Everyone, including endless uniformed agents of
state security, acted as if no such exhortations existed (which the folks in
homey Melbourne incoming lines polices with persistence in my experience, as do
air hosties).
Those in charge don’t take charge.
Maybe it’s like the libertarians’ favourite enemy: “taking offense”. A dangerous
self-indulgence for others.
30% discount surprise!!
There we were at the end of a 3
hour reunion dinner in the revolving restaurant of the Xi Yuan Hotel in west
Beijing with two Chinese couples we had not seen for thirty years. The setting
was much of the charm of the event; the food was buffet and workable but not
notable. The view actually worked (smog was way down!) and revolutions under us
were seriously plodding. Conversation had been wandering in that way that
pleasant recollection does when supported by some very deep shared experiences
in the past. When I called for the bill, the lead waiter called for our
passports and hukou (local residence permits in China) because over 60’s got a 30%
discount on meals!! It wasn’t advertised anywhere, but was not a surprise to
our friends except that it was applying in an upmarket establishment.
Whose engineers don’t know human dimensions??
Once again I have had the not to be
repeated (in my imagination) cramped toilet experience of Toulouse four years
ago. There the hotel bathroom design
engineers had assumed an average adult height somewhere like 10-15 cm short of
my 191. This left me scrunched between the loo lip and the wall, whatever
business I was doing. At the Xi Yuan in Beijing I’ve had a near repeat this
trip. My knees nearly bang the glassed shower enclosure in this recently
renovated hotel. Even I know that Chinese kids of our friends’ children’s
generation are massively taller than their parents. The field test for that
proposition is a walk in the streets of Beijing. 35 years ago I pretty much towered over
everyone else in the street. This is certainly no longer the case. What world
are design engineers living in??
Grain pillows, 35 years later
One of the unmentioned treats of
our 1979 stay in Beijing was grain pillows… pillows of high grade dried buckwheat
with a fine aggregate-like consistency and weight. They provided a reliably
firm head rest for sleeping which also worked even for those with down pillow
backgrounds, as were many a foreign student’s in those days. Real Chinese beds
share this firmness without the aggregate effect – a slight crunchiness to the
touch.
Here we were in the Xi Yuan Hotel (at much less per night than city-centre branded hotels
require) and under two duck-down pillow
variants on the twin bed hunkered two grain based models of yore. Small
reminders of basic needs…
