Transportation in China will always be my arch-nemesis.\u00a0 Actually, I’m unsure if it is the transportation or the lack of common sense by the people operating the different forms of transportation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Whether I’m on my bike, on a bus, in a taxi, walking, or even on the subway, the lack of common sense is glaring.\u00a0 For example:\u00a0 if you have to make a left turn on a busy street (because there is a school there and many many bus routes) it is only natural to turn your car in front of\u00a0the\u00a0bus coming at you\u00a0and wait there until you are able to get through, thus blocking the rest of the cars behind that bus and causing traffic to be backed up for kilometers.\u00a0 And then, of course, if you are not in that car or on that bus but riding your bike, it is only natural to ride between all of the cars\/buses\/etc. to quickly get to your destination…this just makes sense people.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This morning I rode my bike to Chinese class.\u00a0 It takes me anywhere from 28-35 minutes depending on the flow of traffic near this aformentioned school.\u00a0 This particular road was probably not the greatest idea that the city planner came up with unless his\/her intention was to see what 3 kilometers of buses and cars packed bumper to bumper looked like.\u00a0 I really need to photograph this for you.\u00a0 It’s amazing what people will do to be first here.\u00a0 When I got to the “neighborhood” where my Chinese class is held there was another massive traffic back up.\u00a0 Apparently we haven’t figured out the green arrow in this country.\u00a0 Naturally, if you are waiting for the light to turn green so you can make a left turn, your first reaction should always be to turn in front of the oncoming traffic, convincing the cars behind you to do the same and causing the non-turning cars to wait and back up.\u00a0 It is diffucult to recover from this sort of “jam” because (believe it or not) the cars KEEP COMING…\u00a0 Add this situation to a location where there is a railroad track going right through the neighborhood (with quite frequent trains) and it’s even more entertaining.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It doesn’t just happen with left turns.\u00a0 Question: when you make a right turn onto a road (busy or not) what is your first reaction?\u00a0\u00a0I hope you answered, ‘check if traffic is coming from the left.’\u00a0 If you live in China, however, there is no need to check this direction because the person turning onto the busy (or not) street (at a much slower speed, mind you) is clearly more important than the cars or buses speeding down the road.\u00a0 No problem. Those cars will stop for you.\u00a0 (It affects the bikers too…this is how I got hit by a car once)<\/p>\n
One of my favorite situations while using the subway system is when people try to get on the subway before allowing anyone to get off. I think this might actually be a game for some people. Or elevators. The same.\u00a0 The key is to stand right in the middle of the opening of the door so that the “exiters” are not able to exit before you get on.\u00a0<\/p>\n
THE SOLUTION to these traffic problems is simple, however:\u00a0 HONK YOUR HORN INCESSANTLY.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
Okay…I’m done venting.\u00a0 Have a great day!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Transportation in China will always be my arch-nemesis.\u00a0 Actually, I’m unsure if it is the transportation or the lack of common sense by the people operating the different forms of transportation.\u00a0 Whether I’m on my bike, on a bus, in a taxi, walking, or even on the subway, the lack of common sense is glaring.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1116"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1117,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116\/revisions\/1117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}