Americans make jokes about Chinese drivers*. I never knew if an American joking about a Chinese driver was an astute observer or a racist. It can be tough to tell these things apart with racial, national, or cultural generalizations. But I admit in California I surely saw my saw my share of strange behaviors initiated by Chinese drivers: stopping on highway on-ramps, backing up on the highway to turn off an an exit that was accidentally passed, etc. As a open-minded Californian I resisted the urge to associate these behaviors with any race or culture. And then I visited China.
When I moved to Singapore I found myself visiting China for business regularly. As others that have done the same will testify, the roads there are absolutely fucking insane. In Shanghai I saw a woman slam on her brakes while in the fast lane of a highway. Her tires locked up, smoke billowing out from under the car, the vehicle leaning forward and sliding slightly on the friction of melted rubber, all so she use an exit she was passing. After stopping she gingerly turned the car 90 degrees to the side and idled across the highway through honking 100 KPH traffic.
Taxi drivers entering roads in China usually do not even look to their sides before doing so. They act on the faith that another driver that might hit them will raise alarm by honking to call attention to the extreme danger they are about to put themselves in. God knows what happens when horns fail.
But it was in Singapore that I noticed an even stranger phenomenon. Continue reading “Cultural Awareness (or: How I Learned to Understand Chinese Traffic)”