A Bryson in China

Labels: China, Roads

posted by A Bryson (formerly) in China @ 5:49 PM Comments: 0

Meet My Drivers - Nicknames Anyway

He’s “The Honker” one of my favorite drivers. Yeah, I have nicknames for them. I haven’t shared their nicknames with too many people, and they don’t speak English, so they wouldn’t understand anyway. But here’s a summary:

• The Honker – it should be apparent why he has that nickname. If you look back at my recent posting about honking horns, you know it happens a lot here. He is probably personally responsible for the replacement of every horn in a vehicle at Decca. He wears them out.
• There are rides that I prefer to call him The Rocker. He has one of those incredibly irritating ways of rocking up and down on the accelerator. You know: zoom around, off the pedal and coast, zoom around another car, and then drop back again.

• The Flasher - I guess you could say he is the silent “honker.” Instead of honking the horn, he flashes his lights at others. And he is constantly doing it. Someone in a lane nearby starts to move in front of him and he flashes. A motorcycle is slow in front of him, and he flashes for him to move out of the way. Surprisingly, most others respect it, and just make room for him.

• New’un - He isn’t the newest driver anymore, but his name rhymes closely with New’un. And besides, I still can’t pronounce his real name.

• Deep Throat- Not because of any dark secret. No, he has that annoying local habit of clearing his throat deeply and spitting out the window. Happens almost every trip. But he is recently vying to take The Honker’s moniker by outdoing him in use of the horn.

• Lead Foot - I’ve struggled for a better nickname, but he can be a little heavy on the foot. But heck, so is everyone else really. I have been toying with some kind of bad luck nickname for him too. For as good as he seems to be at driving, he seems to get into more close calls than anyone else. Probably a relationship between the luck and his speed. We do usually get there pretty quick.

Riding the roads of China is always a wild experience. I have to have something to keep my mind off the hazards. The nicknames have helped ………… at least some anyway..

Labels: China, Roads

posted by A Bryson (formerly) in China @ 5:44 PM Comments: 0

No Stop Signs

There are no Stop Signs in China! ………… Okay, there are a few. But it doesn’t matter; no one pays attention to them. (Rare one in picture.)

I’m still not over it. From the first time I got here, I was amazed at driving. I still am. But how drivers pull out into an adjoining street is eerie. They don’t look, they just pull out! And I mean JUST PULL OUT!

Think of it from the other perspective: You can be riding down the street, and WHOA! Here comes a truck out from the street intersecting on the right and its in your lane! It might even be headed right at you and slowly making its ways on across to the lane on your left. They are fearless. Honestly, they just pull right out.

My drivers and everyone I know does the same thing when they get to an intersection. If turning right into the traffic they hardly slow down! They just kind of aim to the right and pull out into the first gap they can get! Okay, maybe they glance back at oncoming traffic, but it’s seldom more than a glance.

Drivers just seem to sense this and expect cars to pull out into their lane from the intersecting streets. So they are constantly watching at intersections to allow cars to pull in front of them or else they honk and speed by before the approaching car has a chance to pull out.

If a driver is turning left or going straight, they may be a little more cautious and look left a little more carefully, but they seldom slow down. No, it is a little more harrowing than I can begin to describe, to find your driver just pulling head on into three lanes of traffic bearing down on you. And he’s usually looking more to the rear to see where he can veer over into the traffic of the lane headed in our direction!

You can usually find me in the floor board for most of these situations!

Labels: China, Dongguan, Roads

posted by A Bryson (formerly) in China @ 5:35 PM Comments: 0

Cars brake for tanker truck that has pulled out into traffic as it weaves across to merge into a lane in the other direction.

Labels: China, Dongguan, Roads

posted by A Bryson (formerly) in China @ 5:30 PM Comments: 0

On the Roads of Dongguan

Hmmmm, I wonder if baby seats for motorcycles would sell over here?

Naw... probably not unless you can still get all the family on the bike together.

Labels: China, Dongguan, Roads

posted by A Bryson (formerly) in China @ 6:10 PM Comments: 0

P

Shift into Park. Sure, when you park a car. But how many of you do it when you pull up to a stop light? Maybe car manufacturers intended for us to do that, but it seems a little foreign to me. I never did that in the US. But that is exactly what everyone does here. Whenever they stop, they shift the car into Park!

Pull up to a red light, and drivers automatically shift into Park. Stop to check for directions, and shift into Park! Okay, maybe that is about all the instances. Folks don’t really stop too often. They sure don’t stop at Stop Signs.

But the Shift to Park is really amazing to me. Everyone does it here. Most do it in Thailand too. So sure enough, when the light switches to green, everyone has to shift again into gear. At least is slows traffic a little through the intersection.

I wonder if they think the “P” stands for sitting at red light in Chinese?

Labels: China, Dongguan, Roads

posted by A Bryson (formerly) in China @ 5:34 PM Comments: 0

Replace the "What?"

“We replace our car horns every year?” Well, I coulda fallen off the chair. I have never heard of such a thing. ……….. But then again……. I can understand it over here.

Those were the words of one of our company managers at a luncheon a few months ago. I had never ever heard of replacing car horns. He was making the comment, because the city of Dongguan was enacting a new ordinance that does not allow the use of car horns. Yep, soon drivers can’t use car horns. And this has already been enacted in many of the other major cities in China.

Why? NOISE!! It’s unbelievable. The drivers here all think the horn is a miracle device to stop and avoid any concern. So they just continually all blast the horn. It gets pretty bad!

One day, for the fun of it, I just counted the number of times my driver used his horn during our thirty minute ride home. It was 27 times!! In less than 30 minutes! Almost one time per minute! And I’m not talking about blasts of the horn. I am just talking about instances the horn is used, be it three short blasts or one long blast! The other night, one of my drivers used the horn 10 times in the five minute drive just out to the highway.

And of course, most other drivers are doing the same thing. My driver sees someone along the road ahead, and he blasts the horn to warn them to stay there. A car veers out of its lane, and my driver honks the horn. A car comes up from behind to pass, and it honks it horn at us. It’s constant.

Anyone who has talked to me on my cell phone during my morning commute has commented on the horn blasts. Me…. Well….I’m getting immune to it. I think most everyone is here, so they figure they may as well outlaw the horns.

Gonna be interesting seeing how they enforce this one. But at least we may save a little money with fewer car horns to buy.

Labels: China, Dongguan, Roads

posted by A Bryson (formerly) in China @ 6:21 PM Comments: 0

A Saturday Ride Home

Riding home on a Saturday can be rather enjoyable. First, it’s early! Who doesn’t like getting off work early in the afternoon…. Even if it is a Saturday! Second, the traffic is usually a little less congested. And third, and most important, the sun is up so you can see some of China!

Well, the other Saturday, I used the ride home to take a bunch of pictures. I have now combined all those photos into an album online: A Saturday Ride Home. You can get to the link here, or from under the Photo Links in the right column. It’s kinda of a running sequence of the route home, with a smattering of some of the things you see along the roads of Dongguan. It’s over 100 pictures for the 30 minute ride.

Be sure to pay attention to the traffic weaving in and out of lanes, vehicles and cycles going in wrong directions, and, of course, lots of “froggers.”

Enjoy!

Labels: China, Dongguan, Froggers, Roads

posted by A Bryson (formerly) in China @ 5:49 PM Comments: 0