crossing the street, how to stay alive when

As I was walking home from dinner at The Dive (the food was really, really good, and oh so cheap) tonight, I had some thoughts about crossing the street. Those of you who haven't been to China probably cannot even begin to imagine the madness that surrounds every step you take, especially on blacktop.

In Dalian, there was no method to the madness whatsoever--routinely, I would dash in front of the bus going at about 60 kilometers per hour, slither my way past the two motorcycles with barely a meter of room in between, veer hard left (or right, or try an avoid a car as I jumped back) to avoid the bicycle going the wrong way down the street, firmly shout at two taxi drivers that I was certain I didn't need a ride, and hope to make it to the other side alive. Lights counted for nothing, guts and survival instinct were it, and you just had to go, or wait twenty minutes for another tiny gap to appear.

In Ningbo, things are different. First off, the lights actually count for something, though not quite what they do in most other parts of the world. Red lights don't count for the five or ten seconds before they turn green, green lights mean that everyone has the right of way, though some more so than others, and yellow lights are simply there for decoration, they don't mean anything at all. But at least it is consistently so.

Ningbo taxi drivers, on the other hand, are both suicidal and homicidal.