Americans and Europeans are used to what one guide book called the '30 cm halo': most Westerners won't willingly stand closer than about 2 feet to another person. In China, if you stand 2 feet from, say, a museum display, someone will often step in front of you. On the sidewalk, people jostle and touch constantly: no offense taken, none given.

This isn't rudeness: it's just life in a place with more than a billion people trying to make their way. When you engage people, they are polite, straightforward and do their best to solve issues.

The most dangerous places in Shanghai are intersections: traffic norms are different, even by New York City standards. Cabs, motorcycles and even bicycles will plough, at speed, into dense throngs of pedestrians. Somehow, it all just works. And intersections are by far Shanghai's greatest dangers: crime is all but nonexistent. Linda and I, reasonably well versed in urban street skills, felt very few bad vibes, even in the depths of the Old City's densest, and poorest, quarters. Very unusual in a city this large...
Comments 10:30:00 PM    

Chris Gulker's view from Silicon Valley - in words and pictures