One of the first things you’ll notice, pretty much as soon as you step out of an airport, ferry or train station is the driving (if it isn’t the spitting, dressing boys in pink, or large amounts of male on male adult physical contact -which I know is a cultural thing, but still wigs me out…..).
You learn pretty quickly not to look out of the drivers window, as it’ll almost immediately result in you having a coronary. This’ll occur because:
1) Your driver is doing 70mph in a 50mph zone.
2) He’s trying to fit his car into a space between two lorries that’s 2mm wider than the car.
3) He isn’t breaking, for those traffic lights, even though the tanker laden with petrol (or fireworks, or explosives) in front is.
4) He isn’t indicating.
5) A woman with no crash helmet is riding down the centre lane of a dual carriageway (in the opposite direction) with her 6 month old baby thrown over one shoulder, and 150lbs of cardboard over the other.
Equally, a lot of people learn not to look out of any window, because what’s going on around them is just as bad. Sadly, that’s not a skill I’m able to learn I don’t think. I need to know where I’m, going, for my own peace of mind.
Anyway, I .said all that to say this. I caught a taxi from the city centre to where I live, and in 45 minutes, he sounded his horn 83 times. That has to be a record. I’d understand it if he was taking me home in the the middle of the day, but he wasn’t. It was approaching midnight, and for the vast majority of the journey, there was no one about.
Tags: Driving, Life in China, Spatial Awareness
Jim Bowen's Blog 
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