They have a few traffic issues in Shanghai. Despite the breakneck pace of highway building, they haven't kept up withe the increase in car ownership. Scarily enough, that is still a fraction of what it is in North America: when the per capita car ownership in China reaches North American levels, there will 900 million more cars on the roads in China, 15 million of these in Shanghai alone.
This could be a blessing in disguise for pedestrians. Let me explain.
Much has been written about the driving habits outside of North America and non-Mediterranean Europe. I don't propose to revisit. Suffice it to say that Shanghai's drivers, while not rising to African levels of eccentricity, certainly have peculiarities of their own. One even merits its own word: klaxophony. Shanghai's is the noisiest traffic I've experienced. Paris or Rome could be contenders, except that Chinese car horns are steroid brutes in comparison to European cars' 99-pound weaklings. There is also more to the madness here than the simple exasperated honks you hear in these cities and, say, Manhattan. I am convinced that there is a code, and I am well on my way to crack it.
One short toot means: "I'm here". It is merely an existential statement and can be made at any time, even when alone on the street.
A slightly more assertive, longer toot, is meant to alert pedestrians who who could have a remote chance of wanting to cross the street. This one is also in use by Calgary C-Train drivers: they love their little bell.
Then follows a complex escalation of toot number and toot length that may be finely tuned to each situation, although it is very difficult to decipher, due to the large number of pedestrians at street corners. It does, however, culminate in a very clear signal, a somewhat not uncheerful seven-note tune which means: "Get the fuck out of my way or you will die!"
Peculiarly enough, the horn is never used against other cars. Drivers will change lanes at will, without signalling, and the cut-off driver will just switch lanes in response, and so on until there are no more lanes and one of them has to slow down: it is like there is a force field around each car that pushes the other ones out of the way. The simple rule is: "look at what's happening in front of you, the rest will take care of itself".
Right on red is allowed here, but there is no stopping, even when a massive amount of pedestrians are crossing: drivers merely slow down enough to keep all four wheels on the ground while taking the turn.
Bicycles, scooters and motorcycles are something else again. They have, or take, priority everywhere. The only thing that will stop them is a steady stream of vehicular traffic flowing on the cross street: unless there is a serious threat of death, they move on.. They expect to be yielded to on sidewalks, which can be difficult as some of these electric bikes are fiendishly silent. Motorized two-wheelers are equipped with the same vicious horns as the cars, but somehow they are not used on sidewalks.They also park their bikes anywhere on the sidewalk, sometimes completely stopping pedestrian traffic. They make Calgary cyclists seem almost civilized by comparison.
At least bicycles do not contribute to the smog: Shanghai's air is deemed "unhealthy", even by the government, on most days. We suffer no ill effects, bar the the hazy views of skyscrapers.
Yesterday I had a dessert with black sesame paste. Sesame seeds are common here. It just made me wonder, for the first time. What is a sesame?