Do you possess the speed of a cheetah. The wariness of a gazelle at a watering hole. The eyesight of a hawk. If so, then you are ideally equipped for the life of a pedestrian in Beijing. Beijing is built the way most socialist states built their cities. Big. Big buildings and especially big, wide, and very straight roads and avenues. Down these racetracks careen an increasing volume of traffic. And they stop for nobody, especially lowly humans. Do not be deceived by the veneer of modernity given by the presence of traffic and pedestrian lights, traffic lanes, traffic assistants etc. We naively assumed that when you saw the green man, well then, you could cross the road. Wrong. The first few days we were almost run down by every type of mechanical conveyance known to
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