I have long wanted to write my observations on this subject.
I'm about spatial orientation, if that.
I wanted to write about a completely different orientation, about spatial.
I am not a Chinese, I can’t look at the world from the inside through their eyes, but I can write my observations on 10 years of life in China, on how the Chinese move on bicycles, on cars and on carts.
We have our car in China, we drive a lot, and I constantly see the same thing, and try to understand the Chinese. How do they drive, is it that they instantly climbed from bicycles and carts to cars, or is it some other kind of brain thinking?
Many years ago, I came across some kind of scientific article on the Internet that the Chinese have something else arranged there in the brain, and they do not like us react to the environment. For example, an example was cited that if a Chinese riding a bicycle in front, beeping, he will not react in any way, he will ride the same way, and will not pay any attention to your signals. But, if he suddenly looks around and sees you - he is immediately scared and pulls over to the side of the road ... The article was 10 years ago. I don’t know, I’m not a scientist, and I didn’t delve into the head of the Chinese, but there is something in it.
Further, I will simply give examples from life on points, and you think for yourself.
An example of the first. On a narrow road, two cars drive towards each other. From afar it is clear that in some place ahead they will collide and stop opposite each other.
What are you doing in this case? We always, seeing the POSSIBILITY of such a moment, give to the right, that is, in advance we find a certain free space, freeing up space for the oncoming car so that it can drive through. Or even give back if there is no space on the right, giving way to the oncoming car. That is, we assume, already inevitable, getting "head-on" head 20-30 meters ahead.
What are the Chinese doing? They continue to drive towards each other slowly and inevitably, until they stop 1-2 meters from each other, stand head-on, and only after that, having decided which of them should be handed back, they begin to maneuver back to pass the oncoming car.
Because of this idiocy (or still not the same as ours, orientation in space), a huge number of traffic jams on narrow roads. It is precisely because of this peculiarity of Chinese thinking that 90% of the roads are divided, even single-lane, so that no one drives each other in the forehead. But on the roads to the sea, where there are narrow roads, and even along the mountains of the loop - there is a complete train ... a. Because a single column of cars follows one machine, and the idiocy of one oncoming machine gives rise to a huge traffic jam. That is why traffic cops (traffic police) usually stand on key sections of the road where this could happen.An example of the second. You are standing in a traffic stream at a traffic light or in traffic jam. You are standing close to the machines of the nearby stream. And here you see in the side mirror that between your car and the neighbor there’s a water carrier, on an electric scooter, with water coolers on the side that give his moped three times as wide. And so he begins to squeeze between these and your neighboring car with these coolers, stubbornly driving forward. You, looking at this, are simply fucking crazy, because you understand that it does not pass there absolutely, that now it will blow you a mirror, pushing hard, or scratch the car. A Chinese man yells at him from a nearby car, you open a window and start to tempt the Chinese, too, but the Chinese know what he is doing and stubbornly goes forward. I know for sure that I - see for sure when I pass into a narrow space, and when - not.
The Chinese do not see? Can't determine the width of the driveway and your moped with side canopies? I can’t understand it.An example of the third. You eat on the road alone. There are no cars in front or behind you. If you need a car to drive onto a road from a neighboring road or a cyclist, or a pedestrian needs to cross the road, he will DO it before you. Checked. We already know this, the husband always slows down. We're going, and we say "now it will rush forward," and - for sure - it has rushed.
I always think - he does not see that the road is empty, that there is nobody behind us? I think that he sees, but for some reason he thinks that he needs to slip through and catch it right in front of your car.The last example. Maybe it’s not related to orientation, but all the same to the rules of behavior on roads for drivers and pedestrians (here you can even write a separate post on the topic of driving on roads), pedestrians in any case go around your car in front. Which makes it very difficult to move forward. You think it's empty behind us, why are you running in front of my car? Apparently, this is necessary. :)))
The son, talking a lot with the Chinese, says that they are just taught. There are a lot of Chinese, and if you miss one car, you will get into the then. They are taught, starting with driving and walking, to squeeze everywhere. What's in the crowd of passers-by, in lines, in the stream of cars. Like, if they don’t know how to skip and leak, they will never be able to ride in the midst of a huge stream of cars and walk in the midst of a large flow of people.
Well, maybe there is some truth to this.
It remains for them to learn how to navigate in space and begin to understand the length, width, depth, etc. of the surrounding world.