When green is go, yellow is the same as green and red is go... faster!!!

Every morning I walk to and from work. I walk primarily due to the fact that it is virtually impossible to get a cab in Shanghai, especially during prime hours of the day when people are either head to work or home from work. Conveniently, I don't live near a subway line either, so I am left with little choice. I am sure there will be future blog posts to explain this frustration in utter detail down the road.

At many major intersections in Shanghai, two "traffic assistants" are positioned in bright orange reflective badges, hats, sunglasses and armed with a whistle in hand, similar to your elementary school crossing guard that used to greet you everyday as you passed going to and coming from school. I give the traffic assistants credit, because every one of them seems to take their job very seriously. If anyone so much as thinks about putting their toe on the street or even hovering it over the curb, the traffic assistants will assault them (not literally) with their whistle and shout at them in unintelligible Shanghainese. If a foreigner happens to garner up the courage to run the gauntlet, they simply motion you to back up. This sounds simple enough, but it is quite a task to get 50 people at an intersection in China not to venture out into oncoming traffic.

The funny thing is that it is all a front. Once in a while (or quite often actually) someone will try to sneak past the traffic assistant and cross the street or cross in the middle of the street away from the intersection (what we used to call "jaywalking"), because, for some reason or another they are in a bigger hurry than everyone else or they think they just don't have to follow the rules. It is quite comical when this happens and the traffic assistant notices, because the traffic assistant will start blowing the whistle feverishly and waving both arms in the air like they have been stuck on a desert island for 2 years and are trying to wave down a passing ship. Many times, the people crossing are already across or at least halfway across the street. The animated whistle blowing and arming waving is as severe as the punishment gets. The traffic assistant can't do anything to you but scream and yell. Sometimes, it is just worth it to sit there through a few red lights and watch the charade. It is especially hilarious when a foreigner crosses, because the foreigner simply doesn't understand what they are saying or can at least appear not to understand the rules. Some many things are about perception.

If you choose to break the traffic assistant's rules and cross the street on your own when the light is red, you take your life into your own hands to an extent. There are motorcycles whizzing by, taxis cutting each other off and buses that look like a bat out of hell coming through the intersection.

Despite this danger, I am not convinced it is any safer to cross when the walk light is green and the traffic assistant "grants" you passage. Why? Because red doesn't mean stop. it means go faster to bicycles, motorcycles, buses, taxis, rickshaws and anything else with wheels that you might happen to see on the street in Shanghai. You need to pause a good ten seconds after "the sign says it is safe to walk" and the traffic assistant waves you through before it is actually safe to cross. Even then, it isn't totally safe. Many locals assume others will continue to come through the stoplight even after it is red. It is like it is hardwired into their heads and they pause unconsciously. They would think you are crazy if you started running across the street when the light turns green. People in other countries might pause a few seconds and then walk, but they would think it ridiculous to pause for 10 or 15 seconds while all the stragglers floored it to speed up to "make the light" or "just miss the light."

I have seen people in Shanghai, mostly foreigners, nudge motorcycles and bicycles that come pealing through the intersection after the light is clearly red. To the people whizzing by, they didn't do anything wrong. Most of the time, it is innocent fun, but once in a while someone will fly off a bicycle or lose balance on their motorcycle carrying a family of 4 and tip over. It rarely ever turns into anything more confrontational than that. To me, it is a simple misunderstanding: in many countries around the world green means go, yellow means speed up and red means stop, but in China (and many many other countries), green is go, yellow is the same as green and red means go faster so you can "just miss" the light!!!