“VEHICLES OR PEOPLE?”, THAT’S THE QUESTION

It feels like vehicles win. Most people in town own scooters, lots of students ride bicycles. There are also tons of cars (much more than a decade ago, we have been told). Everybody with wheels is quite aggressive. With no expression on their faces (I mean, they don’t look mad, they don’t give you the finger, or anything) keep going like you are not there, doesn’t matter if you are pushing a stroller with a toddler on it. Mike and I find ourselves yelling to them “Stop!” (or things of that nature ;) and they look at us like “what?”, or just ignore us completely. The other day in Taipei the motorcycles were rolling not letting Ignacio and I cross the street and a policeman on a motorcycle yelled something at them in Chinese, and they finally let us crossed. They do the same when getting on and off the train / subway, no rules! Just push and get in/off! If I were in Buenos Aires, for example, people would be doing the same and yelling at each other, here they don’t spend energy showing any emotion, they just do it. About the bicycles: not a good idea to ride your bike in downtown, very few do it, as it’s easier to “go to war” if your vehicle has a motor. I was also told that in Taipei you don’t want to ride your bike (so I guess Taiwan is very different than mainland China in that respect). Another interesting fact: people don’t know that your leg should be almost straight when you are seated on your bike and that therefore bikes of different frame sizes are made! Most people are painfully peddling around the wrong size bike.