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Sign up with Google Sign up with FacebookQ: sometimes I just dont get it
Iam an ebike rider,I use it for taking my son to kindergarten.I ride the same way at the same time every morning.There is always one person that will try it on with you.
someone will ride across your front almost hitting you with out a care,or they will try and squeese between you and the curb thinking that they will fit through or the ride at you expecting you to move out of the way for them.
I ride as safe as I can as I dont want to injure myself or my son.but other people dont really seem to care what happens to them or there children on an e bike.
its beyond me why people risk there kids and there own life by riding this way.
The problem as I see it is that you are trying to put your own logic and values onto a different culture and mindset. It just doesn't work. I think every person who lives in a foreign country experiences the same thing to different degrees.
I manage this specific issue by (trying) to maintain acute situational awareness when i am on the road (think: everyone is a danger to me and is likely to do something unexpected) and again try not to be surprised or annoyed by someone doing something that i consider dangerous or stupid.
Yelling or expressing your anger/annoyance/outrage isn't going to change a thing.
Change what you can, accept what you can't, have the wisdom to know the difference.
Stiggs:
Bang on.
I used to ride a mountain bike around town in China, I looked at it the same way I used to look at mountain biking, skiing, surfing etc back home. It was a fun way to get some exercise and I loved doing it so.... there's a chance you could get hurt because there are so many idiots on the road but that's just the risk you take.
ambivalentmace:
When you are in public in China, imagine someone is looking for you with a sniper rifle and behave accordingly and you will survive in China, not thrive, just survive. My mother in law let my daughter ride a luggage case in a train station, I knowing the suitcase is not balanced and heavy to one side where the handle is, knew it would fall over and warned them to be careful, but when I dived to a concrete tiled floor to catch my daughter falling forward over the suitcase, the mother in law asked me why I would try to hurt myself. INDEED WHY? For my daughter perhaps but certainly not for her. INDEED. Yes, I want to start my vacation to Saipan with a screaming kid with a swollen toe and a wife wanting to go to a hospital in a town I don't know and forget the flight and vacation and lose all the money we paid for the trip because someone is an idiot.
icnif77:
I had that in mind, when I usually asked Chinese:
'Am I invisible today?'
I really wanted to learn that phrase in proper Chinese ...
iWolf:
Jin tian wo yin shen le ma? Or something like that. Gweilo doesn't need tones ;-/
icnif77:
Thanks!
Currently, I am screaming at Chinese strolling on Taksim Square:
"Ni shi waiguoren, he he!"
I carry a sharp object to scratch the car, then walk away as if I didn't see anything
It's a mind-set. They do the same when they walk. Always somebody try to squeeze when we would wait a sec. or two and pass normally.
Probably it's just a normal day of traffic for most people. I've gotten used to it myself. Every time I go back to America I feel stressed out at how orderly the traffic is.
diverdude1:
haha,,, yep,,, trying to see the difference between traffic in the US and here,,, haha,,, One of my favorite moves over here is people driving down the side of the road (big road) against the traffic,,,, and fat-ass copper in those ratty looking unis just sittin' on his ass watching.... what a fkn joke...
I don't think they're even aware what they're doing is dangerous - the forward thinking, where actions lead to consequences just isn't happening most of the time.
I remember seeing someone putting up Christmas decorations or something in a school I worked at, he was standing on a chair, which was on a desk which was in front of a door and obviously the whole thing was really wobbly and unstable so of course two more people were firmly holding his ankles.
I said something about how bad it was going to be if a student or someone came through that door in a hurry and knocked the whole lot down, or he just fell cos it was obviously unstable and people holding his ankles like that meant he would go down face first..
Yeah I got the blank stares, a laugh, and told I think too much. I've heard that more than once.
The problem as I see it is that you are trying to put your own logic and values onto a different culture and mindset. It just doesn't work. I think every person who lives in a foreign country experiences the same thing to different degrees.
I manage this specific issue by (trying) to maintain acute situational awareness when i am on the road (think: everyone is a danger to me and is likely to do something unexpected) and again try not to be surprised or annoyed by someone doing something that i consider dangerous or stupid.
Yelling or expressing your anger/annoyance/outrage isn't going to change a thing.
Change what you can, accept what you can't, have the wisdom to know the difference.
Stiggs:
Bang on.
I used to ride a mountain bike around town in China, I looked at it the same way I used to look at mountain biking, skiing, surfing etc back home. It was a fun way to get some exercise and I loved doing it so.... there's a chance you could get hurt because there are so many idiots on the road but that's just the risk you take.
ambivalentmace:
When you are in public in China, imagine someone is looking for you with a sniper rifle and behave accordingly and you will survive in China, not thrive, just survive. My mother in law let my daughter ride a luggage case in a train station, I knowing the suitcase is not balanced and heavy to one side where the handle is, knew it would fall over and warned them to be careful, but when I dived to a concrete tiled floor to catch my daughter falling forward over the suitcase, the mother in law asked me why I would try to hurt myself. INDEED WHY? For my daughter perhaps but certainly not for her. INDEED. Yes, I want to start my vacation to Saipan with a screaming kid with a swollen toe and a wife wanting to go to a hospital in a town I don't know and forget the flight and vacation and lose all the money we paid for the trip because someone is an idiot.
icnif77:
I had that in mind, when I usually asked Chinese:
'Am I invisible today?'
I really wanted to learn that phrase in proper Chinese ...
iWolf:
Jin tian wo yin shen le ma? Or something like that. Gweilo doesn't need tones ;-/
icnif77:
Thanks!
Currently, I am screaming at Chinese strolling on Taksim Square:
"Ni shi waiguoren, he he!"
They have to exerce dominance, to show that they are tougher than the next person, especially when said person is a foreigner. It's that simple, really.
I didnt yell at anyone
but i saw that one woman was pissed off because she couldnt take the line she was on.she grunted at me.
ambivalentmace:
I had a foreign friend who has left China that spoke really good Chinese.
When someone would cut the line or que for you Lymies, he would kowtow and apologize to them like they were an emperor for not noticing that they are so important and should have been served immediately and the person would be so embarrassed by this 6 foot 7 inch huge black American male kow towing they would drop the purchase and run out of the store and the rest of the people would laugh so hard taking pictures and let him go to the front of the line. It was hilarious.
Stiggs:
Haha, that's one of the better approaches I've heard.
Everyone has their own way of dealing with it... abuse, snarky comments, ignore them, try to shame them in whatever language, pushing back in front of them etc but the thought of that guy kowtowing cracks me up.