What would you do? (2)

This message is the follow up of the message "What would you do?" placed on  11th october.



Situation 1. Giving directions to a taxidriver
Chinese is a difficult language, for several reasons. One of them is the tones. There are four tones in which you can pronounce a syllable, if you use the wrong tone, you might end up saying something which can get you in a lot of trouble. Communicating in chinese would be less hard if people in the street would make some effort to understand you. Some of them do, a lot of them don't. Unfortunately many taxidrivers belong to the last category. It happen to me once that a taxidriver asked me to leave his taxi because he didn't understand the adress.  Pointing out the destination on a map sometimes helps, but don't always count on that as well. One time the driver had absolutely no clue where the street was, although it was near the Bund! (the Bund is the busy boulevard which you see in the head of my blog).
If you totally get lost in translation, it is possible to call the special translationservice. The number can be found at the backseat of the taxidriver.

Of course writing down the adress is the most easiest solution, but I try to avoid that because it doesn't help me learning chinese. Most of the time I just try out different tone combinations till I hit the right one.


2. No shortcut
Compounds* can be a green oasis of peace and tranquillity, in where you can forget that you are big busy city. Compounds can therefore be used to dodge the fumes of the cars, the heat of the sun, spitting Shanghainese and the uneven pavement of the shadowless chaotic public streets. Crossing a compound can feel like crossing a shadowy park with nice creeks, wriggly paths, luscious trees, grassy beds and seats that invite you to sit down and meditate.
Therefor it has become someshort of a sport to me to find shortcuts by crossing these compounds. Like on day that me and Nico** wanted to go to the Carrefour - supermarket. In between our apartment and the Carrefour there is this big luxourious compound named Huili garden. This compound is to good to be true. This one has a private swimmingpool, restaurant, fitness equipment for the old folks, karate lessons for the kids and the like. And it gives you that breath of fresh air when you walk across it. What it doesn't have is an exit near the Carrefour. The high fence that was found in stead was too high too climb it. So when me and Nico bumped into it, we walked back and tried the fitness devices we found.

Nico on a fitness device found on the compound Huili garden

3. Crossing the street
Traffic rules do exist but the are followed loosely. The way the website of the dutch consulate of Shanghai describes the trafficsituation might seem as an absurd comedy but it is actually very accurate:
Nederlands verkeersgedrag levert weinig rendement op. (...) Rood licht heeft voor fietsers en voetgangers nog minder betekenis dan in Nederland. Het meest afwijkende verkeersgedrag kan als volgt worden samengevat: - Bij rood licht is rechts afslaan toegestaan (tenzij expli3iet anders aangegeven); - Groen licht betekent niet dat de kruising vrij is; - Oranje licht betekent dat het kruisende verkeer optrekt; (click here to read the full description)

It says that red trafficlight doesn't have less meaning than in Holland. The divergent behaviour in traffic can be summarized as followed: with red, turning to right is allowed (unless explicitly notified differently), green light doesn't mean the crossing is free, orange light means that the crossing traffic pulls up.

Pedestrians are the weakest party in traffic, so they have to concede the most. Green traffic lights or zebra's, it doesn't mean anything for drivers of a car of bicycle. Unless you pretend you don't see them while crossing the street, they won't stop or they just drive around you. Sometimes they do miss you with an inch, and some foreigners do get mad. Like my Italian flatmate once cussed the driver of the white BMW in any Italian swearing word that exists. Chinese drivers on their turn will get mad with you as well, but as soon as they find out you are a foreigner they don't bother anymore.



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* A compound is a enclosed area that consist a couple of apartment buildings and has a couple of shared facilities, like parkingspace and garden or sometimes even a swimmingpool and restaurant. You can read more about compound in the message 728 An yuan lu d.d. 13-09-2010.

** Nico is my Italian flatmate. You can read more about him in the message Verjaardag d.d. 29-09-2010.