One of our first weekends in
Yanji, before we had internet access at our apartment, Gavin and I slept at the
house attached to the school on Saturday night so that we could watch the Notre
Dame Football game the next morning and eat breakfast with the Salesians. After breakfast, one of the brothers offered
to drive us back into the city and drop us off at the Catholic Church in the
city. We obviously accepted the offer
and soon enough we were sitting in the backseat of their small SUV as he drove
us down the main north/south street that comes into Yanji from the
countryside.
The street was under construction
at the time and there was really nothing that resembled lanes. Cars were literally moving in every possible
direction, turning into traffic, merging into traffic, and barreling ahead. Soon enough we came to a point of congestion
(the only congestion I’ve seen in Yanji in the four months since) and two lines
of cars had to merge together. The
street was a haphazard mess, and we were stuck in the middle of it not really
in either line.
To our left was a long bus that
was going into town and to our right was a truck. These vehicles weren’t moving parallel to
each other, but were merging into each other—and we were between them. Confounded by what was going on, and
wondering why our driver was still moving the car forward, I quickly figured out what I would do if the
car actually became pinned between the bus and the truck.
After determining that I could
climb out the sun roof while the sides of the car compacted in on each other, I
figured that I would have plenty of time to safely run off the back of the car
and out of danger. Luckily, I didn’t
have to do this because the traffic seemed to magically work its way out, and
we made it to the church safely.
This was my first of many
harrowing experiences on the wild and crazy streets of Yanji.
***
Walking across the streets of
Yanji is like playing a game of Frogger (not that I’ve ever actually played
Frogger, I just remember that infamous Seinfeld
episode). Because stoplights are
ignored, cars turn at crazy angles, and crosswalks don’t really mean anything,
the best way to get across the street is to just start walking across whenever
you feel like it. If there is an opening
in the traffic, you just go for it.
The interesting thing about this
strategy is that it is not necessarily beneficial to look both ways when
crossing the street. Sometimes, it is
actually in your best interest to just start walking. You see, while the cars here move in an incredibly
unpredictable manner, the drivers of these cars seem to assume that pedestrians
will move across the street in the most predictable manner possible.
When I walk across a busy street
in America (when I jaywalk, I suppose), I make sure to look both ways. I only walk when there are no cars coming,
and if cars are coming quickly I make sure to run. Here in Yanji, however, it’s not a good idea
to run if cars are coming. Because
everybody just seems to walk across the street, oncoming traffic will swerve
out of your way as you cross. However,
if you just walk across the street you also have to keep moving at the same
pace and in the same direction. If you
see a car coming and try to run, you might get hit as a car tries to swerve
around you.
Furthermore, the sidewalks in Yanji
are not safe from the wild unpredictability of cars. Not only do cars seemingly drive down the
sidewalk whenever the drivers feel like it, but the sidewalks are also
seemingly used as parking areas for cars.
If a car needs to get into a certain restaurant or store, they just park
their on the sidewalk in front of the place and leave it there.
In other words, automobile
traffic here in Yanji is like a lawless post-apocalyptic wasteland (albeit one
that has plenty of gasoline).
***
Since most people in Yanji
seemingly don’t have their own cars (which made things very awkward when my
Chinese teacher asked me how many cars my family owns), the teachers get to
school by being picked up by a bus that the school owns; a bus that we call the
teacher bus.
Gavin and I get on the teacher
bus at the last stop, and most days every seat is taken. Because of this, we usually end up standing
in the aisle of the bus and watch as the driver deftly makes his way through
the traffic as the bus leaves the city and enters the countryside where our
schools is located (there’s no suburban area to pass through).
The driver smoothly moves from
left to right around trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, tractors, and horse-pulled
carts. He never worries if there are any
cars in the other lanes and he never worries about signaling. He just flows from lane to lane and side to
side without noticing what the cars behind him or next to him might be
doing. Sometimes he honks to ostensibly
let the cars in front of him know that he is about to pass, but he never seems
to be stressed or worried about the chaos around him.
I, however, AM worried about what
is going on around him.
Every time the bus starts to
drift from one side to another I think that he is going to sideswipe another
vehicle or plow over some grandmother walking back from the market. I pay attention to the cars in front of us,
and can’t believe some of the indescribable maneuvers that the bus and other
cars make. I oftentimes find this bus
ride to be legitimately scary.
At first I thought it was weird
that nobody else on the bus seemed at all concerned about the chaotic driving
and the inherent danger in it, but then I realized what should have been
obvious: most of the other teachers have probably never actually driven
cars. Sure, some of the teachers might
have spouses that have cars, but more than likely these teachers have never,
and will never drive their own cars.
I haven’t driven in three and a
half months, but these teachers have probably NEVER driven a car.
***
Aside from the teacher bus (and
the minibuses that are even more terrifying), the other main way that we get
around Yanji is by taking cabs. Now I
spent all of my senior year at Notre Dame riding with my own crazy Chinese cab
driver, but nothing could have prepared me for the insane things that happen
every time I enter a Chinese cab.
One morning when we had to take a
cab to school we hailed it in front of our apartment and it drove out towards
the main street. Cars have to turn left
onto the main street from our apartment to get to school, and on this
particular morning the cab driver was having trouble finding an opening to
enter on the far side of the road. It
wasn’t that he actually waited at all to find an opening; he just turned
straight out into oncoming traffic as soon as he got to the intersection.
Then, instead of waiting in the
middle of the road while cars swerved around him (as they were doing), our cab
driver decided it was a good idea to just start driving down the wrong side of
the road until he found an opening to merge into.
As we watched the cars coming
straight towards us and swerving around us, I reached for the seatbelt. Quickly remembering that the back seats of
cabs in Yanji HAVE NO SEATBELTS, I braced myself for the collision that was
bound to occur. I remembered what one
American had told us at Thanksgiving Dinner: “I’ve come to terms with the fact
that I am going to die in a Chinese taxi.”
I don’t want to die in a Chinese
taxi . . . this is crazy . . . there are cars coming straight towards us . . .
what rational person could think this is a good idea . . . is there any real
process for granting drivers licenses here . . . are there any traffic laws?
Luckily, or maybe just normally,
we survived that ordeal and many other adventures on the wild ride that is a
Yanji taxi.
***
Eventually, I found out that
there is an important and substantial difference between the driving practices
in China and those in the United States.
When a car is merging into traffic in the United States (like on a
highway, or when turning onto a busy street, or when simply changing lanes) the
cars that are going straight always have the right of way. If you want to merge you have to check your
blind spots and make sure that there isn’t a car coming towards you. If you are turning onto a busier street, you
have to wait until there is an opening.
In China, things are the complete
opposite as merging cars have the right of way.
This means that if you are driving straight and a car turns out in front
of you, you need to either slow down or swerve out of the way to avoid
them. If a car starts to merge towards
you, you have to slow down to let it in.
Apparently the logic behind this is that it prevents merging cars from
waiting forever.
While this makes some sense in
theory, it doesn’t make any sense in practice.
Not only does it completely overcomplicate the entire organism of
traffic, but it wastes plenty of energy in braking. These cars might flow lawlessly from lane to
lane, but the way they do it makes no sense and has to cause more deaths by
auto accidents.
Wondering about this, I decided
to do a bit of research and turned to the one place that any college graduate
would turn: Wikipedia. Shockingly, on
the Wikipedia page for Auto Collisions I found this
graph that shows an indistinguishable difference between the per capita
traffic related deaths in the United States and China. How could this be? Do their chaotic traffic customs and
terrifying drivers actually result in the same level of safety as the United
States?
Pondering whether this was just
another cultural difference that I would have to accept, or if Wikipedia had
actually failed me for once, I realized that the above graph is the wrong
statistic. Of course per capita traffic related
deaths in China are going to be low—there are over billion people here, and
most of them evidently do not own cars.
So I found the right statistic: deaths
per 10,000 motor vehicles. Using
this statistic, which is much better to gauge how dangerous they drive, I found
that China has 13 times as many deaths as the United States does.
But what does all this mean?
Many of the things I experience
in China that I find to be strange or bizarre, I just chalk up to cultural
differences. Sure the toilets are
different, or we can’t control our own heat, or there are complicated customs
related to drinking beer; while I might find these things weird and
frustrating, they are just cultural differences that I need to be able to
accept if I am going to live here. The
American way of drinking beer isn’t necessarily better, it is just different/
I can’t pin everything on
cultural differences however, or even accept that things are just different
here. When it comes to driving and the
chaotic roads, I believe this isn’t a mere case of cultural differences, but an
instance where the way that we do it in America is just plain superior.
So unlike other things that might
be worth considering, trying, and experiencing; with the traffic and the roads,
I just have to do my best to survive—because I have no intention of dying in a
Chinese taxi.
Endnote: After reading through
this, I realized that I probably make things out to be worse than they really
are. While I certainly didn’t lie about
anything here (or even really exaggerate anything), I just want you all to know
that I am not in any mortal danger here.
Please don’t fear for my safety after reading this—Merry Christmas.
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