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Update History

10 December 2010

Spread Honey On The Perpetrator’s Blank Stare

I may have already said a word or two about the Chinese being the most selfish drivers in the world. This is a point I simply can never exaggerate. I see all manner of vehicles run red lights, drive on the wrong side of the road, drive in multiple lanes at the same time, make left turns from the right hand lane, make right turns from the left hand lane, make u-turns from the outside lane regardless of light color, swerve into oncoming traffic, change lanes regardless of traffic, jump in front of cars going twice their speed, abruptly stop in the middle of the road for no apparent reason, block traffic at every opportunity and park absolutely anywhere. I do not witness these activities occasionally or once a month. I see people drive like drunken monkeys every single day that I drive. I have seen these people do all of these things at night without their headlights. I drive home on a road that has no street lights for a good twenty minutes. This stretch of road has no houses or businesses to light the street. The only light I can ever see is from my headlights and other cars. So when another vehicle comes directly toward me from the opposite direction without any headlights I cannot see it until it is entirely too close. And when I honk my beleaguered horn at them they always get angry.

The funny thing about Chinese drivers, aside from their complete disregard for the rules of the road and any semblance of common sense, is that they are always personally offended whenever anyone honks at them. When they drive dark colored cars in the wrong direction on black unlit roads at night without their headlights they cannot fathom why anyone would honk at them. Nothing in their brains register that perhaps they are doing something amiss. The Chinese mentality is that if you honk at me then you are clearly the bad guy, no matter what batshit retarded thing I am doing. And yet they freely honk their horns at each other. That is not some exotic ancient Chinese cultural prerogative. That is simple hypocrisy.

Just today I honked at a scooter driver who came within inches of hitting the Wife’s car while he drove his scooter with one hand, held a baby with the other and ran a red light to make a left turn from the wrong side of the road onto the wrong side of the road at night without headlights. I did not honk because he was endangering the baby. According to his culture he was not. I did not honk because he ran the red light or because he was driving on the wrong side of the road without lights. If I honked every time I saw such things the horn would no longer be operative. I am surprised it still works as it is. I only honked because if he had not turned his head around to look in the direction he was driving I would have slammed into him. I hit the brakes as soon as he ran the red light, but since he was driving like this is England I had far less time to stop than I usually do in similar circumstances. When he stopped, literally inches in front of me, my hand was still on the horn. He looked at me as though I had just shot his dog. How dare you honk at me, is the general reaction one gets from local drivers.

I almost always honk at intersections when I have a green light and I cannot clearly see the cross traffic. That is probably annoying to people living there but, and this is foreigner thinking, I think a collision would be worse. The Chinese roadmakers were smart enough to place directional dividers on some of the roads. This prevents cars from swerving into oncoming traffic. A good thing, I say. But the dividers are almost always loaded with large bushes or trees. This makes it impossible to see any cross traffic at intersections until it is too late. Most of my green light near collisions are at such intersections. On roads without the dividers I can usually see the cars that are going to run the red lights in enough time to hit the brakes and wonder what it is about red lights that these people find so confusing.

I usually honk at any vehicle that I almost hit while I run the green light and it runs the red light. One day a scooter monkey that I came very close to killing stopped dead when I honked at him, but not when his light was red or when a car came inches from killing him, and changed direction to follow me. I think he was trying to chase me. Chinese drivers love to chase people whom they imagine have wronged them. I suppose ignoring all traffic rules is not dangerous enough. But I find it hard to be intimidated or impressed by a tiny person on a broken down scooter. If he had a better scooter that could drive above 30km/h what would he do? Wave his fist in the air at me? He could slam his scooter into the Wife’s car. It would not be the first time. That car has several scratches and dents of unknown origin. They were most likely given to it while parked. Leaving a note is not the Chinese way. He could wave his metal rod at me. This is not a euphemism. More than a few Chinese drivers keep bats and metal rods in their cars for the sole purpose of trying to intimidate other drivers. When I honked at a driver who clearly thought that merging into another lane means speeding up to hit the car in front of him and this particular driver waved his metal rod at me I waved a finger back at him. That is the only metal rod I need. Although on another occasion I showed another driver my umbrella when he showed me his metal rod. I think I confused him.

So where are the police? That is a good question. The local police are largely corrupt, incompetent and Chinese lazy. The local news often shows footage of police officers sleeping in their cars or having sex with prostitutes while on duty. There was an infamous photograph of a police officer leaning against his car, casually huffing a cigarette while someone was dying in a fatal car “accident” half a block away. He could have been the first on the scene and possibly saved a life, but he was Chinese and they are not the most observant people in the world. Unlike American police, Chinese police do not become cops so they can bully people and carry guns to compensate for their own inadequacies. Chinese police become cops because they fail most aptitude tests and it is a pretty laid back job. Despite or because of the inherent laziness and inefficiency that all Chinese share, there is very little serious crime. Ninety percent of a Chinese cop’s job is dealing with traffic “accidents”.

Cameras at occasional intersections issue fines to cars and trucks that run the red light or drive over 20km/h above the speed limit. The police seem to feel that this is good enough. The problem is that there are not nearly enough cameras and everyone knows where the few are. Even if you did not already know about them you can see them early enough to slow down or, heaven forbid, actually stop at the red light. A bigger problem is that they are not sensitive enough to catch scooters. Any scooter can run any red light anywhere without consequence, other than the occasional fatal collision with a larger vehicle. But the very real threat of death is not enough of a deterrent to these people. They need the state to take money out of their pockets for them to give half a shit.

And that is the main cause of the problem. No one here gives a shit. It is not that they do not know any of the rules. If we assume that half of the drivers on the road have a driver’s license then half of the drivers on the road must have passed the written test. The English version of the written test is incomprehensible, but I have to assume that the Chinese version makes sense. To pass it you have to have a basic understanding of general rules or guess very well. If at least half of the drivers know three fourths of the rules then why do ninety nine percent of them drive like drunken lemurs? Probably because they are without hyperbole the most selfish people I have ever seen in my entire life. Every one of them seems to think that they are the only vehicle on the road and that they are the masters of all they survey, which is generally only the few feet in front of them. Chinese drivers appear to be physically unable to see anyone in any other direction or other people more than half a car length ahead. Eyesight cannot be the problem. You can get glasses 24H even in the smallest towns. It is mostly a sense of entitlement that they are infinitely more important than anyone else and everyone should always move out of their way. Which is odd since Chinese drivers, and indeed Chinese pedestrians, are incapable of moving out of anyone’s way under any circumstance.

The selfishness reaches beyond the road. Someone will always push their way to the front of every line at every bank, post office, grocery store and government office. The smarter businesses have done away with lines completely and force everyone to take a number. But even then there is always someone who thinks it is their turn right now. Whether on the road, at work, indoors or outdoors, the Chinese all think they should always be first all the time.

It was in this environment that one of my favorite students was almost killed.

Sunny is a happy, friendly, polite child. At least she was before the “accident”. I noticed these qualities in her on her first day at my school because a polite child is rare around here. Most Chinese children are rude, spoiled brats. That might be an exaggeration. Most of the hundreds of Chinese children I have met are rude, spoiled brats. Any foreigner who has ever worked here will say the same. Their spoiled nature has nothing to do with income. I lived in a tiny dirt poor farm village for a few years and most of those children were rude, spoiled brats. In fact, those children were worse overall than the big city children I deal with now. And their parents could barely afford to pay for food, shelter and education. Cell phones and MP3 players were unheard of. Most of my big city students have cell phones and electronic devices that I have become too old to operate. But they are either less spoiled than their village counterparts or I have become more tolerant of the spoilage.

I am not the most polite person in the world. I have probably thanked five people in my lifetime. I cannot remember the last time I said “please”. When people say “hello” to me I usually reply with either, “Yeah, whatever” or “What do you want?” I used to blame this on my upbringing, if you can call it that. I was not raised to say “please”, “thank you” and “yes, ma’am”. I doubt I have ever said “yes, ma’am” out loud. At least not facetiously. I was raised to say, “Yeah, whatever” or “Just what the fuck do you want?” But eventually we all reach a point where we can no longer blame our parents or our childhood. I was a rude child because I did not know any better. I am no longer five years old. Not even close. I know better. My education and ability to communicate extends far beyond whatever I learned as a child. What I say and how I say it is entirely my responsibility. So when I think someone is rude that should tell you something. Most of these children are far more rude, selfish and spoiled than I ever dared to be at their age.

Some are not. A few of them say “please” when they want something and “thank you” when they get it. I even have one student who thanks me when I hand him a test paper. Most of the students are less than enthusiastic about taking tests. I have a student who should be as rude as can be. He never does his homework, he rarely pays any attention in class and he fails most tests. But when he wants to borrow a pencil he always says “may I” and “thank you”. Most students simply say, “No pencil” or “Give me pencil”, to which I respond, “No.” They all have backpacks full of books, notebooks, toys, rulers, scissors or razors, but pens and pencils seem to be a rare commodity.

Some of the students are just happy all the time. Sometimes I try to relate my own childhood to their experience in order to better empathise with whatever is going on at any given moment, but this happiness just baffles me. I used to have a student who was so happy all the time that she was prone to fits of laughter for no apparent reason. If I called her name to answer a question she would laugh before answering. And she was always smiling. I never knew why. In contrast, there was another student in the same class who would cry at the drop of a hat. I tried to be sympathetic but it quickly became obvious that he only cried when there was a test or I called on him to do something. During breaks he would run around the hallways and laugh with the other students. He was only depressed when someone expected something of him. Both of those students are no longer at the school, possibly because I no longer teach that class. Whenever schedules are arbitrarily changed and I lose a class, students always leave. Boss Lady II does not see the connection.

Sunny was always in the happy category. We had a test on her first day at the school and she asked me a question that simply blew me away. I cannot recall what she said, but she said it with perfect grammar. This is an extremely rare event around here. Grammar is not something that anyone cares about. Students, parents, other teachers all focus on vocabulary and conversation. I might very well be the only teacher in the country who tells these students what the rules are and why they make sense. I have never seen a single English book for children in this country that has the words “noun”, “verb”, “adjective”, “article”, “pronoun”, “preposition” or “conjunction”. All of my students know those words and can give examples of what they are. The more advanced students know adverbs and interjections. The few students at my school who are not in my classes have no idea what any of these words are or what they mean. I can tell most of my classes to write sentences in the simple, perfect and continuous tenses and most of the students can do it with minimal mistakes. My more advanced students can combine perfect and continuous. If I say any of these words to other students they will look at me like I am speaking in Esperanto. I once asked a Book 9 student who was not mine if something was singular or plural. She had no idea what I was talking about. They learn the difference in Book 2.

When Boss Lady II casually mentioned that Sunny was in a car “accident” I seemed to be the only one who gave a shit. Some of the Chinese teachers thought that maybe someone should send her a card or something. Fuck that, I thought. What hospital is she in? I will visit her even if it means driving for 45 minutes amongst the Chinese. In an incredible stroke of luck, more so for me than her, she was at the Wife’s hospital. This was convenient for several reasons. I could walk there, thus alleviating my need to drive around people who are hell bent on having people visit me in the hospital. I could go at any time rather than only going before work as I assumed I would since it seemed likely to me that she would be in a hospital near her home. And the Wife works at the Wife’s hospital. In fact, she is a head nurse. This means that I can easily get information that would be tediously difficult to get otherwise and I can be a hero by bringing a head nurse into a patient’s room. This is a major score to these people, though I was far more interested in the information gathering aspect.

From Boss Lady II I found that Sunny was in an “accident”, her mother was driving but probably survived since she was the one who told Boss Lady II about it, and she was at the Wife’s hospital. From the Wife I learned how the “accident” happened, what medical procedures Sunny had already undergone and which she will likely have in the future, how long she will likely be in the hospital and at home in recovery, and where she specifically was in the hospital. At any other hospital it would have taken me all day to simply confirm that she was there.

It is worth noting that I gained access to Sunny’s medical information not because I am sleeping with a head nurse but because anyone can gain access to anyone’s medical information. Knowing the Wife simply made it much faster. Privacy is an alien concept at Chinese hospitals. Any reporter can walk into any hospital and get any information about anyone who happens to be there. And they routinely do. When a celebrity is in an American hospital the news reports simply say that there is no word yet on whatever they want to talk about until some doctors holds a press conference and tell the world whatever the patient wants the world to know. When a celebrity is in a Chinese hospital the news reports immediately tell everyone what bodily orifices all the tubes are in and when the patient last had a bowel movement. I was about as horrified as I am capable of getting when the wife of a prominent politician was in a car “accident” that severed one of her legs and caused all kinds of internal damage and the television crews were right there in the emergency room with a camera in her face, asking her all manner of idiotic questions while the doctors were trying to prevent her death.

Another curiosity about the Chinese is that when I asked Boss Lady II what hospital Sunny was in, she wanted to know why. I would have thought the answer obvious, but I have spent years stating the obvious so I went against my better judgement and told Boss Lady II that I was going to pay a visit. She quickly pointed out that Sunny is no longer my student. An arbitrary schedule change some months ago saw to that. Apparently, visiting a student who was recently almost killed in a car “accident” is unusual, but visiting a former student is unheard of.

Sunny was asleep in the passenger seat. Her mother was driving while heavily medicated. Sunny woke up in the ICU with tubes in her body and surgical wounds in her abdomen. Her mother walked away without a scratch, as often happens. The asshole who caused it is unscathed while innocent bystanders are killed or maimed.

The prevailing Chinese attitude seems to be that while Sunny’s mother was obviously at fault she had no choice. She had to get home and she had to take her medications. Call me a foreigner, but I think there were other options. I know nothing about her medications or why she takes them so I cannot address that. But I am fairly confident that there were other choices to driving.

Taxis are abundant around here and relatively cheap, with rates slightly higher than Thailand and lower than Korea. And taxi drivers will probably not stare at Sunny’s mother with mouths wide open when she tells them where she wants to go in Chinese. There are also much cheaper buses, though they do not go everywhere. And there are hotels, motels and tiny dirt cheap shacks all over the place. If one cannot drive right now there are always alternatives.

Sunny’s spleen is permanently damaged. Part of it was removed during her first surgery and they will probably take all of it in the coming weeks. Without a spleen she will be more susceptible to sepsis and bacterial infections, and she lives in a place that is always susceptible to SARS, bird flu, pig flu and whatever the next pandemic will be. Most vaccines will be useless to her, and the older she gets the more likely she will develop pneumonia, renal failure and/or heart failure. She will have to take medications for the rest of her life and is at increased risk of stroke, heart attack, arthritis, bone necrosis, gallstones, kidney necrosis, ocular hemorrhaging, hypertension, various immune reactions and fetal retardation and spontaneous abortion if she is ever pregnant. But that should not be much of an issue since she now has a large scar just below where her left breast will one day be. This will make her largely unacceptable to most Chinese men since this culture values appearance above all else.

This all happened because her mother drives like a Chinese person.




Update: Sunny returned to school in April as enthusiastic and happy as ever, although more pale than usual.


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