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Sign up with Google Sign up with FacebookQ: Anyone ever notice that chinese walk like they are the only people on the planet?
My wife was getting pissed last night that she has to constantly walk in zig zags as the rest of the world will knock her over if she isnt running for cover.
So we decided to play a game.
She would walk directly behind me and count how many people walk directly into me. And how many people blame me for it.
Simple rules.
Must walk in a straight line.
I must he visible long enough to give potential targets time to react and walk around me.
I must walk with a small profile. Arms straight down at my side.
In total i walked for about 3 minutes. From the pizza shop to my car ( in a mall) and the results were quite impressive.
From the pizza shop to the escalator (60meters) 3 people walked into me in a row. The second and third saw the first bounce off me and still did the same.
From the escalator to the parking lot ( about 100m) no less than 7 more walked right into me ranging from strong arm to arm contact to a lady motor boating me. One lady walked out of a shop and stopped directly in front of me without a look up. And of course im a dick for that. According to my wife who is walking behind and recording the reaction.
Final Score
10 knock overs
2 made foreigner related comments
2 noted that i was rude
5 looked back at me with a rude look
1 pretended nothing happened.
Anyways its a fun game and my wife finally was able to walk un obstructed.
Wait i forgot an actual question i had.
Are all chinese people walking in a straight line and just keep hitting each other all day?
Or do half walk like dicks while the other half are just constantly avoiding contact? How do they function?
Robk:
They constantly walk in zig zags... that is the one theory I have no answer to...
Why do they walk like mindless zombies in a country with over a billion people!?
After 5000 years, you would think a straight line would be more productive.
They do apologize (sometimes, usually not if you a foreigner... who knows why..),
My ONLY theory relates to my previous post. Why can't Chinese do two things at once? Chinese can't really walk straight while looking at something or chatting. I notice when many talk on their phones, they have to stop walking and just hault in the middle of a huge crowd.
So my final conclusion.
Chinese multitasking is SO horrible they can't walk and think/look/talk at the same time very well. Well most anyway.
I never knew people only walked in straight lines.I find that if I walk behind a dude or dudette on the sidewalk, and need to overtake, then this becomes difficult as people NEVER walk in a straight line. They can walk straight, and then as you are about to step past them, stray slightly off course.
Lord_hanson:
I agree, they seem to know which way you are going to try and overtake them from them they move that way. It drives me crazy.
I have noticed that groups will walk abreast across a path, sometimes with arms linked, making it difficult for individuals walking the opposite way.
Robk:
Yup, they do that all the time. And then when you start walking into one of them two things usually happen:
1) They realize (AT THE LAST MOMENT DURRR...) that there will be a collision and move... if you are lucky... or
2) They think one of their other buddies should move or that you should move while they pass. I don't and end up walking in to them on purpose.
It really is annoying.
Try standing still out of the way and watch how many still bump into you.
Hahaha.... actually I always thought they walked like cattle...
Bumping into each other with dull lifeless eyes.
I got to try this game... sounds like fun! I have become so good at weaving around Chinese people... like driving... I always assume some idiot will try to cut me off out of nowhere. So I am always ready.
I feel like a ninja when I am in a crowd of Chinese people... or on bad days, I use my weight and height to my advantage and it is juggernaut time.
I played a funny game last week while in Nanchang train station with my family. I was driving the stroller and waiting in line to check in tickets. i made sure there was no space in front of the stroller. I watched to see how many people will try to bulldoze their way in front, then I run over them with the stroller and scold them. extra points for women and children!
Why can Chinese ghosts only walk in a straight line? Because they couldn't when they were alive!
Oblivious...I'm telling you, the ultimate word to describe mainland Chinese is oblivious.
RiriRiri:
You can only make sense of the Chinese when you stop seeing them as adults.
Then it gets crystal clear.
Yeah, and when I drive my bike on the right side, hugging the right side of the lane, I feel I'm a disturbance to the traffic. People who try to pass me on the right, people going the wrong way, etc. I'm sure it's because I'm a stupid foreigner who doesn't understand China.
Lord_hanson:
Don't forget the people walking on the road even though there is a pavement next to them.
walk to your right has been surpassed with the china way- 'chaos cuz thinking is too hard' everyday I watch people coming towards each other (walking,bikes,cars), that is sooo fun to watch.. last second they usually manage to avoid each other, but I would wager that a Lot of the cripples you see in cities here got smashed-up as children in some bike/e-bike wreck. I personally knew one 20-something missing her right foot. She told me it was due to an e-bike accident when she was a small child.
Big Picture: Isn't there some Law/Rule of Nature that a population 'gets' the system it desires? or something like that....
Scandinavian:
Yes. A people have the leaders they deserve. Living in an evil dictatorship just means you don't deserve better. A bit of complaining about leaders always helps, at least it has done so in most of the world.
xinyuren:
by this logic, North Korea deserves the evil dictator they have? Can you honestly say that millions of people deserve evil? This thinking smacks of elitist and lacking compassion.
diverdude1:
speaking of DPRK I was wondering how they turn on each other so easily. I understand persecuting the 'other' (not saying I like it), but DPRK seems so quick to persecute it's own*. Not unlike another society kinda did in the late 50's.
*homogenous small population seems all there is in N.Korea
Lord_hanson:
I believe it was one of the earlier American presidents who said this. They usually talked in an elitist fashion but he was of course refering to a full on democracy vs Monachy. Of course it is a stupid thing to say. Most countries did not have a choice back then.
Hahahaha, good game to practice it in a kindergarten classroom.
Yeah. I usually walk straight and shove people out of my way, I used to move out of theirs in my first few years then I got pissed and decided to play the hard way. Usually the two third of the people I shove blame it on me (with the xenophobic insults and everything) while I am following a straight path and they turn around or do a curve to walk straight into me (almost feel deliberate), one third keep walking as if nothing happened.
One day in the escalator I was standing on the right side, as any civilized person would do as to let a path on the left for people who are in a hurry, the guy in front of me suddenly decided to walk down for some reason (he must have forgotten something, he could have took the other escalator from up there but no, anyway) and instead of using the path on the left he headed straight to me as if I wasn't here, bumped in me and almost fell, what a moron hahaha
the most selfish people in one of the most populated countries, its a question i will never have an answer for, the real problem is many of them also drive like they walk.
I love this game! I only play occasionally because I don't want to get addicted. I still move for girls ladies children etc but the men provide ample opportunities for collisions. Don't play this game in a Shanghai metro station at 8:30 am - you will never reach your destination.
Mike's results for his game really need a control before conclusions can be drawn.
The experiment needs to be repeated under exactly the same conditions in different countries and the results compared.
Anyway, I call this the goldfish effect. I was watching goldfish in a pond one day and it struck me that their movements were very similar to that of people on a Chinese street. Random movements, random changes of direction, but no actual contact.... unless you throw a bit of food into the pond.... then the scrum begins.
Perhaps pedestrians on western streets could be compared to a fish such as the mackerel. They are school fish and move as one.
Different fish, different environments, and different behaviour to suit the environment.
I don't really mind being a goldfish these days. Being a mackerel was getting a bit boring .
mike695ca:
Haha i love the goldfish comparison. Ive often called them goldfish for their lack of memory or planning comprehension but it also works just based on their movements. Love it!
They do EVERYTHING as if they are the only person in the world. They are ridiculously selfish and inconsiderate.
I usually stand my ground and not budge. I get my way all the time. Maybe me being Chinese coupled with neck and arm tattoos help?
Eorthisio:
That must be the tattoos, they probably think you are a yakuza
At home both people will half move to avoid collisions or both end up dancing back and forth because they are deeking in the same direction. This doesn't work in China. At first I felt it was aggressive because anyone that does that at home is a real prick. When I do a half bend expecting people to also bend they still hit me. I'm taller than most Chinese, it can't be that they can't see me and they love starring at me.
I posted about this long ago to ask what if I don't flex and I now put my shoulder into them, you walk into me then you bounce. My girl friend always got angry and said 'why' and I just say they walk into me, what can I do.
I've also said before and you can google this that low testosterone causes spacial impairment, but it might be an inherited trait brought on by 5000 years of walking long distances in extreme heat. I walked about 25 kms one night in the heat and found that I was walking like the locals, same slow lifeless speed. I usually find it difficult to walk with a Chinese person unless I drag my feet.
On a side note maybe you can get an idea about this by playing John Conway's "Game of Life", just google it and you can find, it is a computer-operated simulation of a colony of organisms who breed and reproduce subject to population constraints (so when there are only a few nearby organisms they breed and reproduce, but when there are too many they die out due to overconsumption of resources). Maybe you'd have to change the rules when trying to model Zombieland aka Paradise on Earth but you get the point.
Here's an even funnier game: Make a pile of superficially-convincing fake money, fill it in a briefcase, and pretend to lose it on a busy street. Let a friend videotape the resulting carnage, but make yourself scarce before any local police realize they are brabbing for fake cash (counterfitting carries the death penalty). Don't forget to post it on youku, and link to it here!
DrMonkey:
Free T-shirts will do, no need to counterfeit money
http://shanghaiist.com/2014/07/21/hubei-aunties-fight-for-free-stuff.php
coineineagh:
Free trinkets needs advertisement before the ayi's will come to ruin the atmosphere. Stacks of cash blowing in the wind will zombify locals on the spot.
Most of the times I try avoiding collision. Sometimes, when really tired, I don't. Being 6.2 and 100kg helps a bit.....
My only choice is Q: 'Am I invisible today?', 'cause I'm only 175cm and 70 kg.
I'm planning to learn, how to say that Q in Chinese.
I am usually headed straight for where I am going and want to get there quickly. While I think in general, a lot of Chinese people like the atmosphere of a busy street with lots of vendors. For some, that is their entertainment. Especially for all those people who are from another place and just came to this city to work, live in a dorm and send most of their money home.
In order to walk the streets without frustration, I learned two things:
1. I do not own the path in front of me. Others have just as much right to it as I have. Maybe more because I am a foreigner.
And,
2. The chances of crashing into others is greatly reduced if I do not look at them.
mike should try the same game while making sure not to look at those people in his path and see if his results are any better.
Beats me. I don't think it's normal behaviour. In a land where people can think it'd be construed as aggressive. But here it's not that, it's just stupid.
After 53 months here I can't say I understand much about Chinese thinking at all.
I hate the way they have to cause as much mayhem as possible and still have shovelled their food down their throats and be out of the restaurant in less than half an hour.
Went to HK today. Crowded as usual, but as it was a same day back and forth trip i was walking with purpose. Its amazibg that i can walk as fast as i want there. Even when others are walking while playing with their phone, they are still quick and courteous. Night and day.