The latest round of annoyances

I had thought that my little holiday last month had acted as a safety valve, helped to dispel some of the tension and irritation and impatience with the craziness of China that had been building up to the point of explosion after two years without a break from the country. But it seems not. Or I need another holiday again already, anyway.

Amongst the bizarre things that have been getting my goat in the last week or so....

The cordons of bunting introduced for the crossing guards on Gongti Beilu (and possibly other major roads in the city centre as well, but this is the only one I've walked on regularly); it seems that, during the evening rush hour, they are supposed to raise these strings of little triangular red flags (they have characters written on them, but I haven't paid them much attention; presumably they are road safety slogans such as "Walk, don't run" or "Don't walk until the crossing guard tells you"?) to block the crossing points at the corners of major junctions and keep pedestrians safely penned on the sidewalks. In principle, there might be something to this idea, since having clumps of pedestrians try to scoot across the road between moving traffic can be dangerous, and may interrupt traffic flow slightly (well, it would... if cars actually slowed down for pedestrians crossing the road in front of them - but in Beijing they don't). In practice, it is insanely restrictive, since the official 'crossing window' is very brief, and is not actually the most practical or safest time to cross the road (cars make right and left turns without paying any attention to pedestrians on a crossing, so the roads are often busier and more hazardous when the pedestrian crossing light is green; however, even at the busiest times of day, the traffic lights stay green for so long that queues of cars usually clear, and there's nearly always a window when the road is completely empty and it's safe to cross while the pedestrian light is still red). Moreover, it's not feasible to block off all access from the sidewalks to the road; so, people - if they do not want to risk the ire of the crossing guards by stepping over or ducking under the bunting - move a little further up the street, and attempt to cross without using the designated crossing points. Hence, this system of bunting cordons is in fact diminishing safe crossing behaviour by pedestrians. A staggeringly dumb experiment! I give it a month. What's really depressing and exasperating about this is that it is evidently the best idea the Beijing government can come up with to try to improve road safety.

And when you do find yourself with unrestricted access to a pedestrian crossing (the one on the corner of Sanlitun remains mysteriously bunting-free).... a car will stop right in the middle of it.... for no good reason.... right in front of you, just as you're trying to cross. This has happened to me not once, not twice, but three times in the last week or so (and I don't even go to Sanlitun very often! this is every time I've tried to use that crossing!). Idiots who are unsure whether this is the turn they want and, instead of pulling over just short of the junction, pootle across it at walking pace; and then stop when they get to the other side, still undecided as to whether they should turn here or not, but presumably contemplating a three-point turn to rectify their overshoot, reversing into the middle of the junction. And while they're making up their minds - which could take a few minutes - the obvious place to park is right in the middle of the pedestrian crossing.

But no-one would really try to pull a three-point turn in the middle of a busy junction at the height of the rush-hour, would they? Oh yes! It happens all the time. The other day, I saw a bus do it. Well, one of those luxury tourist coaches. It was approaching the 3rd Ringroad on Liangmaqiao Lu when the driver suddenly realised he was supposed to be pulling into the Kempinski Hotel on the other side of the road. No problem: you can just do a U-turn across both lanes of traffic, enter the fulu (a narrow service lane, separated from the main road by a kerb), and drive up it 100 yards in the wrong direction in order to reach the hotel forecourt. No problem - except that he didn't have the turning circle to pull it off. If he'd been in the outside lane, with the full width of the road at his disposal, he might have had a chance; but he was in the inside lane, and he barely got half-way round. So, he had to do several back-and-forth shunts - reversing on to the jam-packed 3rd Ringroad auxiliary road - in order to complete the manoeuvre.

And then, a couple of nights ago, as I'm walking home, a young man rides his bicycle on to the sidewalk directly in front of me, and deftly dismounts in order to go into a 7/11 convenience store. And instead of leaning his bike against the wall, he lays it flat on the ground, at right angles to the road, right in my path. Really, he does this not 2ft in front of me: I have to check my stride quite abruptly to avoid stepping on the damn thing. I let out a loud exclamation of dismay, but he seems oblivious of me, has already turned his back and begun striding into the shop. So.... I give his rear wheel an almighty kick to clear it out of my way.

It's not China, it's just Beijing. I'm beginning to wonder if there's something in the water here that turns everyone into a cretinous sociopath.

I'm beginning to wonder if I should leave.