China Charlie

A weekly column about living in Dongguan, for those new to Dongguan, new to China, or anyone that likes a good story.  Written by an expat  who first came to Dongguan in 1987,  hopefully this series of articles will be both entertaining and informative.

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Is there a bounty on highway divider signs, and well, I finally saw one…. . .  .

I understand that things generally get a little “crazy” during a full moon and the ”run up” to Chinese (Lunar) New Year. Even though we’re roughly in the Full Moon phase, and Lunar New Year is still approximately 3 weeks away, I’m not certain what rationale I could use for a couple of things I’ve observed recently.

The first is the apparent placing of a bounty on highway signs here (for those not familiar with the term, “bounty” used in this context is “a reward for the destruction of a pest or capture of an outlaw”).

What I’m getting at, is that over the past couple of weeks, I’ve seen more than one medium sized truck either destroying or making love to (I’m not quite sure of which) highway divider signs.

You know the signs I mean, those cute little yellow stands with a white cube on top and arrows in blue circle that indicate the point that a roadway divides into additional lanes (usually mounted on some kind of concrete curbing). Just to make them more visible, they’re illuminated at night.

Given the colors used in these little dudes, and the fact that they light up like a “house of ill repute” after dark, the only reason I can see for parking Gasoline (Petrol) tank truck or Dong Feng “deuce and a half” on them is that someone must be offering a bounty.

Where I come from in North America, bounty’s are normally reserved for predatory animals that have been getting into herds of live stock or outlaws “on the lamb”, and occasionally used as an incentive to reduce over population of some species of wild life but never on highway signs (well, maybe sometimes you’ll see a “back road” sign riddled with bullet holes, or the scatter of a Shotgun blast, but that’s “just in fun”).

The second item is something that I’ve commented about several times in the past. Notably, how do vehicles on two wheels, like bicycles, motor scooters and motorcycles collide with each other? Well, recently I found out how, by witnessing just such an occurrence-a motorcycle and bicycle going “head to head” at an intersection.

The way that this one “went down” was that my driver and I were about to enter an intersection on a green light, when one guy on a bicycle came “barreling” through on the cross street (against the red light), looking to see if he was going to get hit by cars that had the legitimate right of way.

Coming the opposite way (of the bicycle, again “against” the red light) was a guy on a motorcycle, going like “a bat out of Hades”, and looking to see if he was going to get hit by cars with the right of way.

My driver saw what was going to happen and had stopped. The next thing we saw was a motorcycle (and rider) sliding through the intersection on its side, a bicycle laying on its side with the stuff that had been in a carrier on the back, scattered around, and a whole lot of surprised looks.

All of this happened in front of two “officers of the law”, that had been standing on the corner smoking cigarettes. The next thing that happened was a screaming session between the two cops, the bicycle rider (who was doing a theatrical limp and pointing to his ankle), and the motorcycle rider (who was having trouble doing much screaming, because he was holding a rag to his nose and pointing at his downed “Bike”).

We went on our way to take care of some business, and came back through the intersection about 45 minutes later, to see the whole group still screaming, pointing and limping.

Ah, so goes life on in the “Middle Kinkdom” …..  . .  .

“Y’all have a rice week now”