Three years ago, when we were in Beijing and then Xi’an, I flat-out refused to cross any streets unless we were with a guide. If there was no restaurant on our side of the street, we ate at the hotel. If Sophie wanted to go exploring, we walked up and down the same block, getting to know the five or six shops on it very well. While we sometimes gazed yearningly at the opposite side of the street, I didn’t feel that as a responsible parent I could allow my child to walk in front of chaotic Chinese traffic any more than I could allow her to sky dive or leap canyons on a motorcycle.
The conventional wisdom is that in China, foreigners should adopt a herd mentality and insert themselves into the middle of packs of experienced Chinese street crossers. Those people know what they’re doing, so do what they do. And besides, if anyone gets hit and you’re in the middle, those surrounding you will take the most impact. Great advice, but I decided that I’d sooner use my airplane seat cushion as a flotation device than risk crossing a Chinese intersection.
But we’re in Guilin for a month, and it will be a very long month if we confine ourselves to one block on one side of the street. So I’m trying to overcome my fears.
In Guilin, as in most Chinese cities, even if there’s a crosswalk with a green light, traffic never really comes to a stop. If you wait for the street to be clear, you might as well pitch a tent on the curb and plan to live there for the rest of your life. Street-crossing involves altogether different techniques than in the U.S.
To begin, you must step off the curb and check the first lane of traffic, often a separate motorbike lane. Is anyone coming? If so, you must judge their distance and speed and decide whether they will hit you if you walk right out in front of them. This is just the warm-up leg. If you manage to make it across the lane, you can take refuge on the curb and gather your courage for the extreme sport part of the process: now you have to get across three lanes of honking vans, speeding taxis, barreling compact cars, and double-decker buses bearing down on you.
It’s best to take it a step at a time. Consider carefully but quickly: can you make it across the first lane? Once you get to the second lane, can you keep going within a reasonable amount of time? Can you then cross the third lane without dying instantly? If so, you go, and then you land on another curb and repeat the entire process for three lanes of vehicles coming from the other direction.
Once you make it safely across the second three-lane set, it’s tempting to breathe a huge sigh of relief and rest on your laurels, in which case you will be sideswiped instantly by a motorbike coming from the other direction. It’s easy to forget that yes, there’s an eighth lane of traffic. Get across it safely to the sidewalk but don’t get too cocky; motorbikes sometimes travel on the sidewalks as well.
It’s one thing to master techniques for crossing the street, but then there’s form to worry about. Sophie has perfect form. Her timing and judgment allow her to stroll across the street with the utmost casualness, just like your typical Chinese citizen, not looking the least bit fearful that her life is about to end, even if she claims that she’s really thinking, “Oh my god oh my god I’m going to die I’m going to die.” She likes to make fun of me, at my tendencies to suddenly think “oh my god I’m going to die” and break into a scurry, a jog, or an outright run.
Right now, as I write, she is doing re-enactments of Mom Crossing the Street around the living room. She says, “You look like a flying bird trying to get away from a. . . “ and then she finishes lamely, “bigger flying bird.” Then she glares at me. “I’m too tired to come up with a metaphor,” she says. She hurdles the coffee table and doubles over with laughter at her memory of me crossing streets, but I don’t mind. I’ve now crossed several streets and am still alive, and now feel confident about crossing the street to explore the five-story Wal-Mart.