Signs - Part II "Organized Caos"
Dear citizens of the world,
My second blog post continues along the same topic of signs in China. This sign which can be found at the entrance to Tian'anmen square in Beijing has no translation problems. The problem is cultural.
The same as Chris's last post, this sign clearly prohibits exploding vehicles...but it also has many other regulations:
When cycling towards the "Peaceful Heavenly Gate" square I decided to stop to read the sign and make sure I was not breaking any laws that would get me thrown into the Beijing slammer. The square is surrounded by hundreds or thousands of uniformed police, military, plain-clothed police, video cameras, communist lasers of death, etc...
The sign prohibited buses, but there were many buses full of locals and tourists alike.
The sign prohibited bikes pulling large amounts of cargo, but lots of them rode by as I was decifering the sign.
In the end, I decided to push ahead, sure that I was not breaking any rules and that many others were - giving the outsider a general impresion of fearlessness and caos.
This is where the confusion comes in. There are so many rules that the locals do what they please until someone stops them.
A bit further down the road we tried to get into the highly protected pedestrian area (pushing our bikes as the guide book suggested). The skinny rent-a-cop (who was swimming in his uniform) at the entrance stopped us. I explained in Chinese how I wanted to push the bike and not ride it, but he refused us entry, "No Bikes!" he said, as a chinese woman left with a bike. It did not matter and the backup of foot soldiers and many large weapons made me decease in my efforts even though I was quite frustrated. There were many signs, but none prohibiting bikes!
There are many rules - too many - and nobody seems to follow them, but when the authorities put their foot down, there is no way around them - especially in Tian'anmen.
A deeper, underlying feeling in China is fear. The rules that have been enforced in an "effective" way are very much engrained in the minds of the population. This causes a "shock" that leaves an invisible hand on people. Since I was not in China for long enough the fear could only be percieved indirectly, like watching a stream flow around an invisible rock. You can not see the rock, but the effect is visible to those paying attention to the changes in the current.
Overall, these two contradicting feelings leaves China with a feeling of ordered caos.
The United Statsian
PS:
I leave you with a sign from 1870 in a small village in Southern Spain. It prohibits washing clothes in the fountain with a one-peseta (less than on cent now and days) fine. This just goes to show that laws need to be updated every once and a while:
