Dodge & Weave

I'm not sure what is scarier: being in the back of a taxi as you drive through the streets of China or actually being on the streets of China.

I.

While driving around the overly crowded (and getting more crowded everyday) streets of Shanghai there is only one constant: the horn. Apparently, using your horn in China is like a language all itself. Drivers use their horn while their backing out and then again while they're performing a three-point turn, and some more while they are pulling forward. Once on the road, the horn is used to tell other drivers that they are approaching, and then blasted more furiously to tell them that they are passing them, and then again to make it known they are about to cut in front of them and possibly send them squealing off onto the curb. Thanks for the heads-up...

Cars are a relatively new thing in China, where up until a decade ago the mass form of transportation was the bicycle, and millions and millions of new cars are added to the roads in major cities each year. As a result, it's like having a bunch of brand new driving teenagers on the road, except that they are fifty and have no time to learn how to actually drive. So road signs are ignored, red lights are a suggestion, pedestrians are figments of the imagination, and crosswalks are there only to show where an intersection is.

Ashley and I had just arrived in Shanghai when we decided to take a taxi down to The Bund, Shanghai's famous river-front walkway full of restaurants and tourist attractions. Ashley was absent-mindedly staring out her window while I had my eyes transfixed on the road before us. Our taxi driver blasted his horn as he throttled through the busy streets past the endless line of construction trucks and fellow taxicabs. We barely dodged an elderly man pedaling his bicycle in the right lane and our taxi's blasted horn gave another cyclist a split second to decide to either move over or get sent sailing into the smoggy Shanghai afternoon. I thought I was in for a short relief of the hypnotic mayhem unfolding before me when we approached two large, slow-moving dump trucks that took up both lanes. As we moved closer our taxi driver refused to slow down and instead laid into his horn with the fervor of a jazz player blasting his trumpet, and before I knew what our driver was planning we swerved across the single, solid yellow line and onto the opposite side of the road.

We're American, I felt like telling him. Not British, so please get on the right side of the darn road!

But as my eyes grew wider with a mixture of surprise and fear my throat bottled up and I sat mesmerized at the scene through the windshield. Oncoming cars blasted their horns and swerved to avoid our taxi. A little black VW nearly popped up onto two wheels as it veered to our right, nearly entering the wrong side of traffic itself. It's a strange thing, sitting on the right hand side of a car, and seeing another car pass you on that side - You don't really realize how strange the situation would be until it actually happens at 60 miles per hour in one of the most populated cities on earth.

I forced my eyelids closed and imagined I was in some Hollywood film and was in the middle of some elaborate car chase.

"Follow that car!" I would yell as I dramatically pointed towards some other taxicab that looked like three million others in the city. "Don't lose it! They have my daughter... or wife, or girlfriend, or son, or grandma, or cousin, or that one guy who speaks Chinese and English!"

And, of course, my driver would be more than willing to oblige, and he would turn on his disco ball that he just happened to have on the roof of his car for situations just like these. We would careen down the busy roads with our disco-ball lights flashing and reflecting off other cars windows and mirrors. We would dodge cars and bullets seemingly coming from everywhere and I would theatrically yell "don't lose him!" as the captors streaked around a sharp right turn that seemed almost impossible for a car to make. Of course we would follow, and as two of our wheels popped off the pavement and our skid marks burned into the road, we would send pedestrians scattering and other, innocent drivers flying off of our hood, flipping twice and exploding as they barreled into a bus full of poor citizens. As our two wheels landed back on the road and my taxi driver, who apparently has had years and years of Nascar experience, once again sped off after the other car, I would look through the back window at the explosions and chaos that we left behind with a small smirk on my face (while cocking my magnum pistol, of course).

Unfortunately for me, this was not a movie and all those CGI explosions seemed all to real on the streets of Shanghai. After what seemed like hours, but was really only a second or two, I opened my eyes again in hopes that I would find that our driver had driven back onto the correct side of the road. Alas, he had not and we continued to send other cars and cyclists onto the curb. Despite our continued destruction, no other cars seemed to get overly excited about this seemingly normal escapade, and some cars, who we nearly smashed head on, would give a short honk, swerve out of our way and then give another short, amiable honk and give a wave that seemed to say, "oh hey Xia Sheng Wei. Driving on the other side of the road again? That's cool. See you tomorrow!" And on we would go.

Just when I thought the traffic ahead of us (mind you, still on the other side of the road) was becoming to thick for us to possibly weave our way through, we cut back into the correct lane of traffic, barely missing the front bumper of a school bus full of yelping children. I let out a sigh of relief and looked over at Ashley, who was happily snapping pictures of the Shanghai skyline, oblivious to the nearly twenty-second ride from hell that we just went on. I decided it was better if she didn't know...

II.

Pedestrians do not have the right-of-way in China. Ever. Never, ever.

It is better if you understand this notion before you ever set foot in China, for it will save you a lot of pain. Serious, physical pain.

If the opposite light shows a little green, walking man and you are in a crosswalk, it is not safe to walk. Ever. Forget what you have learned growing up in the United States or any other Western country, where the idea is that those on their feet should be more protected than those who are sitting in a steel cage of destruction. But, in China, that is not how it is. Whoever is in the more expensive and more vicious of vehicles and drives more recklessly than everyone else on the road, has the right away - if they choose to earn it. It is never something that is given to you. You have to fight for it.

Unfortunately, with no horn (the weapon of choice in China), pedestrians are nearly helpless when it comes to navigating the overcrowded and dangerous streets of a Chinese city. Whereas back home, if I had the green walking man sign I would gladly step out in front of an oncoming car, because I knew they would either stop, or they would hit me (hopefully at a relatively slow speed) and I would become a rich man. In China, I'm not sure if suing people for hitting you in a crosswalk is even possible, but it doesn't really matter because if you do actually step out in front of an oncoming car in China, they will not stop and they will not slow down. And you will die. Never play tough on the streets in China. Again, you will die.

More dangerous than cars even is the new alternative to the slowly fading bicycle: the electric, scooter bicycle. This silent but deadly machine is like the stealth fighter that bombs you while you're taking a short stroll through the park smelling daisies when out of nowhere your whole world bursts into flames of terror. Unlike cars, which are usually loud, squeaky, and have some jurisdiction about where they can be located (somewhere on pavement), the electric scooter comes from everywhere. It is on the road, the bike lane, the sidewalks, the hotel, the store. Everywhere it can possibly fit, it will go. It's horn is weak and, unlike cars, who never take their hand off their horn, it is less seldom used. It is not uncommon to be sauntering along the sidewalk, breathing in the fresh, new smog and enjoying your day, when behind you, with nary a whistle of wind, a whole gang of electric scooters will buzz by you without warning, brushing your elbows and barely succeeding in not picking you up with their front wheel and displaying you like an expensive hood ornament. All you have time for is to mutter some obscenities, freeze where you stand, and hold yourself like a child lost in the mall. Weeping is optional, but strongly suggested.

Never walk in front of car. Make sure your head is always on a swivel in China, for danger comes from everywhere - and it comes ever so silently. Again, if you do not adhere to these rules, you will die...