I so admire the Chinese bus drivers.  In a country where driving is still new, these people have mastered not only the art of the stick shift transmission but also the art of maneuvering the streets full of foot traffic, taxi traffic, motorcycle traffic, and the “regular” traffic of cars and trucks, and the occasional animal in the street, and I forgot the three wheeled vehicles.  There are double yellow lines in the center of the road, but they apparently mean nothing. People will pass in the oncoming lane. A taxi will  make a U turn right in front of a bus.  A motorcyclist carrying a driver, a passenger, a small child between them and  perhaps a load of packages will weave between the cars and trucks and come up beside the bus on either side.

As a pedestrian, I know the procedure for crossing the street. I think of it as crossing lane by lane.  I look for two clear lanes before I start, but this is unlikely, so I judge the speed of the oncoming traffic.  Is it a huge truck?  Don’t start.  How about a few motorcycles and a three wheeler in the second lane?  OK, get across the first lane and be in position when those vehicles pass.  Pause on the center line and check the opposite direction.  Judge the traffic, run the other two lanes when there is even a slight break.  Watch out for the side lane where people will be turning.  Whew! Another successful crossing.

As a bus passenger, standing by the driver and seeing what he sees, I know what he has to do.  A student actually told me a few years ago, “Cross in front of the bus instead of a car, because the bus driver will not hit you.”  Can you imagine?  Because relatively few people are themselves drivers, few people understand the danger of crossing the street. But the procedure works for them, so they continue. I have already horrified my children by walking out into traffic in the USA.  I just forgot that it wasn’t necessary.

In fact the main traffic here moves fairly slowly, and the drivers are always expecting to see the variety of traffic.  Still, their procedure is to lay on the horn, as if to say, “Watch out, I’m coming through.”  At first I was upset by all the noise of the horns, and as an American I asked myself, “Why?”  (Americans love this question but it doesn’t occur to the Chinese.) I have concluded that, besides the fact that many people are near sighted and don’t wear glasses, people are so new to driving that they are fearful of the power they hold in their hands.   They aren’t fully aware of how to stop, nor do they judge how quickly they can stop, so they blow the horn and let the person run.

Motorcycles operate by a different set of rules. They don’t stop at the traffic signals, they can go either way on a one way street, and they go faster than the cars.  Taxis also speed, make U turns, pass in oncoming traffic,  weave through the lanes, and stop abruptly if they see a potential client. The three wheelers — I don’t know what their rules are.  Perhaps “Survive” is the main one.  Some of these have a bicycle with a cart attached, while others are motorcycles with cart attached.  What really are the rules?  I can see only one in operation: the biggest vehicle has the right of way.

The bus drivers must account for all this chaotic jumble in the road while keeping track of who needs to get off or get on the bus. The bus is designed for perhaps 60 passengers, but it is not unusual, especially at peak times like 5 pm, to have more than 100 people on the bus.  I haven’t actually counted as I am squeezed between the bodies, but I have estimated.  Sometimes 3 people get off and 6 get on.  One time I wanted to wait for the next bus, but Dear Husband pulled me on behind him and the door closed behind me, scraping my coat as I stood on the bottom step and nudging me forward into Husband’s back.  At the next stop, more people got on, more than got off, but people shifted and moved slightly, so that the mass could move forward.  Gradually we were moved to the center of the bus.  It often reminds me of putting flour into a canister–shake it down and put more in.

In a recent class, I gave students pictures of cities.  The task was to describe the pictures.  The New York City picture shows a street scene.  It includes tall buildings, one quite ornate featuring a statue, red advertising banners, people walking, signs, decorative street lights, traffic signals, and the cars, trucks and buses on the street.  Of all that is in the picture, one student noticed, “The traffic is so orderly.”