Lessons from Chinese Mobs

I love the traffic in Beijing. A lot of foreigners - particularly from America - hate it. They drive like Europeans (especially Greeks) except that they are a bit more observant of traffic signals, probably due to the soldiers who stand guard all over the city. Other than that, though, the general rule of thumb is to do whatever you have to do to get where you need to go. Size matters, but not as much as you think if you are nimble and quick.

The only absolutely necessary amenity on a motored vehicle is a horn and, for a self-powered vehicle such as a bicycle, a bell. There is nothing you can't do with a good horn or bell. Turn signals? Quite unnecessary. Indeed, it's not uncommon to see a city bus barreling down the middle of the street with no headlights after dark. It's safe, you see, because the driver is laying on the horn. (Regardless, whenever we boarded buses we attempted to crowd into the rear to avoid the horror movie that unfolds on the street in front of the driver.)

Nevertheless, we did not witness a single accident. Sure, sometimes a cyclist would get nudged by a bus or car here and there, but nothing serious. Overall, I found the scene amusing, humane, fun and quite easy to adapt to.

Alexia and I rented bikes on two of our days in the city. Biking around Beijing was a breeze. Cyclists are particularly lucky because the city has many very large bike lanes everywhere. I mean, there are lanes on each side of the road and they are wide enough to fit a tank. (Perhaps this was intentional?) Sometimes bike lanes take up more overall width of the road than car lanes. Plus, we get special bike lights for controlling our traffic and crossing guards/soldiers stand at many intersections to help us get across. Regardless, bikers still bike anywhere they can and need to and nobody gives a hoot.

Basically, traffic works like this. Imagine a river (Chinese, if you will) with a large school of fish (think of the carp, one of the most popular fish used in Chinese paintings). (If you are midwestern, it might be easier for you to think of a flock of birds.) Now, imagine how the fish move as they make their way downstream. They whirl around rocks, debris, each other and any other obstacles in their path. They are fluid and flexible as they ride the streams and eddies. Sometimes the school will break into various parts, but it comes back together on the other side. Trajectories are arcs and circles rather than squares and lines; flexibility is more important than velocity. Overall, the scene is very graceful and beautiful to behold.

There are a lot of lessons that can be learned from their traffic. Emotionally, anger never surfaced in me despite being cut off, nudged and honked at repeatedly. You see, there is no ego in the struggle for movement on the streets of Beijing because everyone acknowledges that the traffic laws just don't matter. There's progress. Nothing more. Functionally, the mob is never wrong. Nobody fucks with a mob, not even a bus. Learn to work with the mob and you're set. If you move with the mob you will get somewhere. It's not always where you need to go, but it's usually close enough. I love that. Mathematically and artistically, there is the emergent order from chaos...nonlinear dynamics, fractals, and all that other happy shit used to produce beautiful artwork and route traffic on the internet. You can see it in the branching patterns of trees and the crystaline structures of frozen snowflakes. It's everywhere.

Overall, I found Beijing traffic refreshing and definitely prefer it over our regimented traffic flows and road manners any day. (Have you ever noticed how manners and bully's are closely associated?)

Perhaps there is a price we pay for the comfort of our highly controlled traffic. Think about the repeated accidents and deaths of students by buses in our relatively quiet town of Champaign-Urbana. Why aren't they paying attention? Why are the buses not seeing them or honking? Chaos keeps people on their toes. It's good for life and anger management too.

I love the way they shit and I like how they move.