My sister has informed me that my blog is mostly about food. I tried to tell her that my last entry was about my bags, but she said it was really about how much food my bags held. I hadn't intended on writing primarily about food, but some of us aren't as gifted as my sister and don't really know what to write. (Check her out at www.thedailycollision.blogspot.com and you won't be disappointed!) So, I decided to write about traffic today and I took some pictures on my way back from the Fu-Mart. I won't tell you what I bought there, but it was primarily edible items. I happened to have my camera handy and was able to take this picture of Mr. Lettuce Man deciding to cross
through an intersection against the light. I mean, why not? Traffic was not heavy at that particular time and place so it wasn't that big of a deal. I am going to have to keep my camera handy so I can perhaps catch some other interesting shots. It takes time to get it out of my purse, turn it on, line up the shot, and that often ends up being too much time. I need to come to terms with the fact that people are going to stare at me a lot even if I am not taking pictures of seemingly random things, so I might as well take the pictures if I want them. I am still a bit self-conscious.Now Mr. Lettuce Man is not an exception to the rule. People really don't seem to like to wait more than 5 seconds and would rather cross the street against the light in a Frogger like method than wait their turn. To try to remedy this situation, there are actually people at the intersection who hold red flags and megaphones and direct pedestrians and cyclists. Now there are the little lights at
crossings with the red standing (don't walk) figure and the green walking (walk) figure. Seems self explanatory to me. Surely not all of the Chinese are color blind with poor vision. They should be able to figure it out. Sometimes the people (usually women) will actually wave the flag is someone's face and yell with the megaphone. They have to go to such extremes if they want to be acknowledged any more than the walk/don't walk signals.
The sad thing is I used to think that the traffic and the people and the bicycles were horrible. Now I am rather used to them. Sometimes I even play a little Frogger rather than waiting for the light to change...
