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Cyclist in Shanghai – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country (2010)

As a Canadian ex-pat currently residing in China, there are moments where my culture and values clash with Chinese culture. A recent situation at a dinner with my wife’s family and friends surfaced the importance placed on car ownership in Chinese culture. I will get to this.

Last week I had a friend drop by for 5 days after after he became stranded in Hong Kong when his work trip to the United States was cancelled. During those five days we spent at least 2-3 hours each day exploring the city by bicycle.

The Chinese tend to be very forward and blunt compared to people in North America, so there were several situations where locals blatantly laughed at us for riding bicycles.

In one such situation, a group of guys in their early twenties laughed when we were leaving a bar on our bicycles, and made a comment in Chinese which roughly translates to:

“haha, those foreigners have to rely on their bicycles to get to the bar”.

In another situation we ended up talking to two men who also laughed at us when they first saw us. When confronted about why they laughed at us when we pedaled past, they commented:

“Riding a bicycle in Beijing.. I could see that. That’s what people do in Beijing. But here in Haikou? Nobody rides a bicycle in Haikou”.

As someone who has visited China twice before, these situations are not unexpected, and don’t bother me insofar as it pertains to being embarrassed about riding a bicycle.

However, the part that bothers me is the fact that people’s first instinct here when they see someone on a bicycle is to presume that they are too poor to afford any other mode of transportation.

If the perception that “people who use bicycles are poor” prevails in China, bicycling will become extinct as a mode of transportation as China’s wealth increases.

There are two things that can save bicycles as a viable mode of transportation in China. The first, ironically, is car culture itself. Increased traffic congestion - in a country with more than 160 cities with populations exceeding 1 million people – will give people a reason to start using bicycles again (or electric scooters as is the case here in Haikou).

The second thing that can save bicycles is changing the perception that bicycles are just a mode of transportation for the poor. This is much harder to do, as I have found.

While eating dinner with my wife’s family, a prominent well-to-do friend of the family asked my wife how many cars we have back in Canada. The question was not, “Do you have a car in Canada?” or “What kind of car do you have in Canada?”.

The assumption was that we obviously owned a car. Thus, the question was, “how many cars do you own?”.

I felt not embarrassed for myself, but status and success (measured by wealth) is important in the Chinese culture, so if someone doesn’t own a car, they must not be very successful.

My wife’s father graciously and supportively explained our reasoning for getting rid of our car. I couldn’t ask for a more supportive father in law and I am grateful that he helped defend us. My inadequate Chinese language skills unfortunately prevented me from explaining my perspective.

Somehow I think the explanation was futile. The damage had been done. We had clearly disappointed the family friend and there was an awkward silent moment where it was obvious that he was disappointed.

Don’t get me wrong, the man who asked this question is an extremely kind and genuine man, and I don’t fault him whatsoever for asking this question. We are all just products of our culture and it’s easier to go along with the culture than to question it or rebel against the culture (as I have done within Canada’s car culture).

Had I been able to respond, I would have explained that we live close to work, we can walk to hundreds of restaurants in downtown Toronto, and we have access to five brand new cars on our doorstep that we can rent by the hour anytime we want to using Toronto’s Autoshare car sharing program. If we need to leave the city for a weekend, we have a number of rental car options.

I also would have explained that I can get to my destination by bike faster than driving a car 8 times out of 10 in downtown Toronto, and that I enjoy being outside and getting some exercise after sitting on a computer for 10-12 hours a day rather than being stuck in a car.

I might also have mentioned that by ridding ourselves of our car, we are saving $8,000 every year (~48,000RMB) that we can put towards our daughter’s education fund.

I would have also showed him video footage from the Netherlands to explain to him how liveable and pleasant so many European cities are because they went against car culture rather than embracing it.

One day China will evolve - especially after the car culture brings Chinese cities to a grinding halt - and the Chinese will have a better appreciation for a more humble, pragmatic, simple existence that holds less importance to status and material possessions.

In the meantime, I will continue to pedal around this Chinese city with a smile on my face, and perhaps I will convince just one Chinese person that bicycling is a great way to get around for both poor people and wealth people - and everyone in between.

James D. Schwartz is a Transportation Pragmatist and the Editor of The Urban Country. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com or follow him on Twitter.

Related Articles:

The Chinese Car Obsession (Nov 2011)
Only the poor ride bicycles in Shanghai (Sept 2010)
The Bicycle as a Status Symbol (Sept 2011)
Sunday Afternoon Traffic in China (Jan 2012)

Awkward Moments In China’s Car Culture Frenzy

Sunday, February 12, 2012

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Posted by at 4:29 AM 11 comments

Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

A few months ago I came across this Canadian Tire Corporation poster from a 1936 store catalogue and I snapped a photo of it on my phone. The poster had been all but forgotten when it resurfaced again while I was sorting through the photos on my phone.

The ad reads:

“SEE CANADA FIRST”

YOUR Motor Car is the key to the magnificent scenic wonders of this vast land of ours. It is your most economical and enjoyable form of transportation.

Let us help you keep it fit and new – economically and safely. This catalogue fully demonstrates our ability to do so.

Although I doubt that a motor car was the most “economical” form of transportation in 1936, there is little doubt in my mind that it was the most “enjoyable” form of transportation at that time. Motor cars were relatively new, fast, and there were few other cars on the roads compared to present-day Canada.

These factors would have made motor cars a very enjoyable mode of transportation.

Little did they know in 1936 that people would love driving so much that they would structure their entire lives around their cars, isolating themselves from their communities and eliminating any prerequisite of social interaction with their neighbours.

They probably had no idea that people would end up spending a significant portion of their income just to pay for those “economical” motor cars, or that the government would be required to socialize the car industry just to make motor cars somewhat affordable to the masses.

Or that people would spend hours every day sitting in their car – often moving at walking speed - in traffic jams up to 100KM long.

Or that our “love” for automobiles would cause an oil spill that would release 53,000 barrels of oil per day into the Gulf of Mexico for three months straight – or kill hundreds of thousands of people in wars to control overseas sources of oil.

In 1936 they certainly wouldn’t have known that motor car collisions would eventually end up killing 1.2 million people every year worldwide, or that an additional 2 million people would die each year from the air pollution primarily caused by motor cars.

It was probably unimaginable to someone in 1936 that our cities would be torn up and almost every last inch of space would be allocated to motor cars - making walking or bicycling in the city uncomfortable and tense.

Or that their motor cars would cause all of their favourite local shops to close down in favour of large suburban parking lots and mega super-stores.

And what about road rage in 1936? What reason would someone have to get angry while enjoying their new motor cars with very few other people sharing the roads?

The term “road rage” itself didn’t surface until 5 decades thereafter, originating from a Los Angeles news broadcast that discussed a series of shootings that occurred on Los Angeles freeways from 1987 to 1988.

Even amidst all of these negative aspects of our car culture, people still love their cars. Car company advertising plays a significant role in making cars appear to be safe and enjoyable – using closed, empty street scenes in the city, or empty winding roads in the country (scenes which most people will rarely experience but for their imagination as they kill time while stuck in traffic congestion).

No, I don’t need a motor car to discover the “magnificent scenic wonders” of Canada.

Here are a few photos of Canada’s magnificent scenery that I have discovered by bike and kayak:

Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

Mojo in Toronto harbour

Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

James D. Schwartz is a Transportation Pragmatist and the Editor of The Urban Country. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com or follow him on Twitter.

Related Articles:

We’ve Been Carjacked (Dec 2011)
We Are Addicted To Automobiles (May 2011)
No Cars. No Traffic Signals. No Deaths. (June 2011)
Car Culture Bleeds Our Society (Aug 2010)
Refusing To Be Herded Like Cattle (Aug 2010)

Canada’s Magnificent Scenic Wonders

6 comments

Sunday Afternoon Ride

3 comments

LollipopChild

Photo from Sotres, Asturias, ES courtesy of pablerax

In North America there is a common perception that drivers “own the roads” and deserve as much surface area as can be paved. This perception exists despite the heavy subsidization that drivers receive through motorist socialism, which ironically, is prevalent in the United States where socialism is frowned upon when it benefits the poor, but embraced when it benefits drivers.

This sense of entitlement is at the root of the animosity that can be felt on North American streets and is seemingly exacerbated when someone on a bicyclist dare tread in motorist “territory”.

The tension is so strong – particularly during rush hour – that you can often feel it while riding. The tension is sometimes explicit, for example when an angry driver honks at you for being in his way, but often it is merely implicit and internalized, but can still be felt.

That tension that I can feel while riding a bicycle in Toronto is noticeably absent here in China. Drivers here don’t feel that cyclists are infringing upon their sacred space. In fact, the space is not sacred or “owned” by anyone, but “shared” by everyone.

Just like ordering a meal at a Chinese restaurant, the Chinese virtue of sharing extends from the dinner table onto the streets. There is no sense of entitlement or anger, or resentment towards other road users. People just use the streets to get to their destination – whether by car, by bus, by bicycle or by scooter.

The incessant honking that can be heard in China is not out of rage like the honking in North America, but more to warn other road users to watch out. It’s actually often refreshing to be honked at in China, because drivers are letting you know that they are near. The angry honking in North America pours fuel on the road rage fire.

Furthermore, most streets here provide a safe, physically separated portion of the road to two-wheeled users. And on the narrow streets that aren’t wide enough for physically-separated bike lanes, cars are secondary to foot and two-wheeled traffic.

Back in North America - where we dream of having proper infrastructure for two-wheeled road users – a controversial movement called Critical Mass was spawned to provide cyclists with their own dedicated road space for a couple hours once every month.

The driver sense of entitlement and Critical Mass were the core topics in an interesting podcast that re-surfaced for me recently by my friend Ben Mueller-Heaslip. In the podcast, Ben shares a story about encountering an angry driver while riding through a residential neighbourhood with a small group of people following a Critical Mass event last summer. Here is a portion of the podcast:

“Sure enough, some over-entitled asshole came up behind a couple of girls riding side by side at the back of our little group and started blaring his horn and yelling. It was way too much for him – being inconvenienced for three seconds while the girls moved over to let him pass. But no matter how much of a hurry these fuckers are in, they ALWAYS make time to pull up beside you and fart their rage through their teeth for a little bit.

These type of people, whose sense of entitlement towers over their sense of human decency – tend to be really fucking tough - when they’re yelling at tiny little girls. And that sort of nonsense, it happens all the time. I doubt there’s anyone who’s ridden a bike in this city at all who hasn’t encountered someone that flies into a childish tantrum – for the simple reason that they have to move their car over a couple feet, or wait a couple of seconds.

It’s like the city streets are a giant lollipop their mommy gave them for going two whole weeks without pooping in the bathtub. They earned it, it’s theirs! They own it! And by being there, it’s like you’re licking their big lolly. It’s just not fair!

That’s why I like Critical Mass so much. It takes these values buried in that selfish, childish, petty mentality, and points out their absurdities – by taking them in a different direction. I mean it is a collective act of mass selfishness – taking over some part of the streets and imposing different values on them for a couple hours.

So for a couple hours the picture is inverted – because for the rest of the hours of the month, we do the exact opposite. We work our way into the clockwork mechanisms of the city, as smoothly as rainwater runs through the cracks and potholes of our shoddily maintained roads.

And once a month, all those seams run together into a little flash flood. Ford Nation gets its socks wet. And Sue-Anne Levy (an anti-cyclist Toronto newspaper columnist) bellows in rage.”

There are plenty of things I miss about Toronto, having been away now for almost a month. But the sense of entitlement and road rage so characteristic in our well-established car culture is certainly not one of them.

Listen to Ben’s entire podcast on iTunes (episode #29). If you like Ben’s podcasts, you will be happy to know that I am working with Ben to bring podcasts to The Urban Country.

James D. Schwartz is a Transportation Pragmatist and the Editor of The Urban Country. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com or follow him on Twitter.

Related Articles:

Bike Helmets Not Warranted (Sept 2010)
Wear a Helmet And Get a Cycling Utopia (June 2010)
We’ve Been Carjacked (Dec 2011)
We Are Addicted To Automobiles (May 2011)

Our Streets Are Like A Giant Lollipop

2 comments

Haikou, China gas station

Cars lined up at a Haikou, China gas station - Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country (Jan 2012)

Want to get rich? Open up a gas station, a car wash, or an auto repair garage in China.

Car culture is sweeping through China as car ownership becomes affordable to countless new Chinese families. Car wash stations and auto repair shops are sprouting up all over the city I am living in – with demand still outpacing supply. Long line-ups are a regular occurrence at gas stations here.

The consensus among locals I speak to is that everyone wants to have a car. Owning a car validates that someone has reached a certain point of “success” in their life and once you reach that point where you can afford a car you never go back to riding scooters again.

The status works on a rising scale. The poorest of poor use pedal bicycles, which are becoming very uncommon here as people’s increasing wealth allows them to move up the chain to riding electric scooters.

Once someone reaches the next plateau of wealth, they ditch the electric scooters and graduate to car ownership. The wealthier you get, the more expensive your car is.

As the wealth here increases - and thus the number of automobiles increases - the Chinese will discover the ills and inconveniences of car ownership. They will reminisce about the days when they could actually get to their destination in a reasonable time on a bicycle or a scooter instead of sitting bumper-to-bumper not getting anywhere.

When they are sitting in a line-up for an hour just to fill their car with fuel they will miss plugging their scooter into the wall to re-charge it or hopping on their bicycle.

Yet they will find ways to rationalize sitting in traffic jams for two hours. They will tell you how comfortable their car is, how much they love listening to music in their car. They will find any reason to justify it - just like we have done since car culture swept through North America some forty plus years ago.

Below are a few photos I took of car-related business around the city while pedaling around on Saturday.

One of many car washing stations around the city – many of which didn’t exist a few years ago:

Haikou, China car wash

One-block-long line-up of cars waiting to get gas:

Haikou, China gas station

Some people got out of their car to get some fresh air while waiting for fuel:

Haikou, China gas station

Another car wash station:

Haikou, China car wash

Porsche SUV and other cars being washed:

Haikou, China car wash

Even the natural-gas-powered taxi cabs weren’t exempt from line-ups. This natural gas station had taxi cabs waiting in line to fuel up:

Haikou, China gas station

Cars slowly making their way through this gas bar:

Haikou, China gas station

Haikou, China – All photos by James Schwartz / The Urban Country (Jan 2012)

Chinese families thankfully don’t drive anywhere near the distances that Canadians or Americans drive, so cars don’t need to be filled up too often.

People largely live urban lifestyles here - I have yet to see a detached single family house in all my travels through China - so long commutes to work from the suburbs are uncommon here.

But this influx of car culture could change all that. Will the Chinese culture of urban lifestyles outweigh the pressures of sprawl? Time will tell.

James D. Schwartz is a Transportation Pragmatist and the Editor of The Urban Country. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com or follow him on Twitter.

Related Articles:

Sunday Afternoon Traffic in China (Jan 2012)
Democracy Is Good, But… (Jan 2012)
The Chinese Car Obsession (Nov 2011)
The Bicycle as a Status Symbol in China (Sept 2011)
Only the poor ride bicycles in Shanghai (Sept 2010)

Want to Get Rich? Open a Gas Station in China

15 comments

GeneHackman

Gene Hackman in 1993 (AP Photo/File)

On Friday at approximately 3PM, Oscar-award winning actor Gene Hackman was hit by a pickup truck on his bicycle in the Florida Keys. The incident was covered widely by the media which made sure to point out that the 81-year-old Hackman was not wearing a helmet. Though true, this fact seems to distract us from the fact that he was hit from behind by a pickup truck.

Reading the media’s coverage of this incident it is very difficult to find any find any information on whether the driver would be charged or what possibly led to the pickup truck striking Hackman’s rear tire. After mentioning the lack of helmet near the beginning of the article CNN mentioned only that “alcohol was not a factor” afterwards.

The Daily Herald reported that “Hackman was riding without a helmet on an Islamorada street around 3 p.m. when the pickup hit him, throwing him onto the grassy shoulder”. The article mentions that no charges “were immediately reported”.

Of the top 11 results on Google News when searching for “Gene Hackman Bicycle”, five articles have the word “accident” in the title.

The word accident implies that the driver who hit Hackman from behind did nothing wrong, wasn’t negligent and this was an unavoidable incident. There is no evidence that this collision was merely an unavoidable “accident” (if it’s even possible). Yet this is what our media would lead you believe.

Furthermore, the media’s focus on Hackman’s lack of helmet – in a place where there is no law mandating helmet use – implies that Hackman should accept some of the blame because he wasn’t wearing a helmet.

The Digital Journal even went as far as to state that Hackman’s not wearing a helmet led to him being airlifted “to ensure no head trauma had occurred”. Most other news agencies reported that he was airlifted because he was on an island, not because he wasn’t wearing a helmet.

Of those top 11 news results that covered the Hackman crash 7 mention the lack of helmet, and 8 mention the word “accident”.

This highlights how buried we are in car culture. If the driver wasn’t drunk, then it must have been an unavoidable accident. If the cyclist wasn’t wearing a helmet, well then duh, he gets what he deserves.

Perhaps instead of highlighting that Hackman wasn’t wearing a helmet, the media should mention that a man who is turning 82 this month is healthy enough to stay active and ride a bicycle. That should be a story in itself given how immobile our sedentary fast-food car culture makes most North Americans.

But instead of focusing on what should be a story of an 81-year-old doing what most 81-year-olds cannot do, the media focuses on helmets and all but ignores the root cause of the collision.

New York’s Gothamist website highlighted the lack of helmet in its headline entitled “Gene Hackman Not Wearing Helmet While Cycling And Getting Hit By Car” – as if getting hit by the car (it was actually a pickup truck) is secondary to Hackman’s not wearing a helmet.

If the media feels it is necessary to point out that a cyclist who is a victim of a collision with a car isn’t wearing a helmet, then they should also point out that victims of car crashes weren’t wearing helmets either.

Out of the 32,708 people who were killed in car crashes in the United States in 2010 I wonder how many news articles mentioned the lack of helmets?

James D. Schwartz is a Transportation Pragmatist and the Editor of The Urban Country. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com or follow him on Twitter.

Related Articles:

Bike Helmets Not Warranted (Sept 2010)
Wear a Helmet And Get a Cycling Utopia (June 2010)
We’ve Been Carjacked (Dec 2011)
We Are Addicted To Automobiles (May 2011)

81-Year-Old Gene Hackman Hit On His Bike

40 comments

Scooters and bicycles in Haikou, China

Pedaling in Haikou, Hainan, China – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

Last Sunday afternoon I hopped on my Giant folding bicycle and headed from where I am living in the “suburbs” and headed into downtown (a 5 kilometre jaunt). What ensued was a thrilling ride among a myriad of other two-wheeled travelers making their way to and from the downtown core.

I am currently living in a city called Haikou – located on Hainan island in southern China. In Chinese, Hai means “Sea”, so Haikou’s literal meaning is “Mouth of the sea”. Haikou has 2 million inhabitants in four districts, and boasts the highest rated air quality in all of China. It also features 2,000 hectares of green spaces with trees lining 40 percent of Haikou’s roads.

Despite this, Haikou’s air quality is declining. Automobile ownership has increased drastically in the last few years, with a clearly visible increase in traffic congestion from my two other visits – first in 2007 and 2010. As soon as I stepped off the airplane ten days ago I was greeted by a cluster of shiny new, luxurious car dealerships (BMW, Toyota, Nissan, ford, Infinity, Lexus and Mazda).

When I first visited Haikou in 2007 most cars were from the 1980’s – including entire police vehicle fleets. Just 4 years later it is now common to see police officers in brand new Audi A5’s. Car culture is sweeping over China, and it’s not pretty.

An ex-pat friend of mine living in Shanghai told me he met a Chinese man at Starbucks yesterday who told him that he paid more than $100K USD for his BMW – which converts to more than 630,000RMB with the current exchange rate. An average salary in China is less than 4,000RMB per month.

When the topic of rent came up, my friend told the BMW owner that he pays 3,600RMB/month for rent. The man who paid more than 630,000RMB for a car that will depreciate year after year told my friend that he’s wasting his money and paying far too much for rent. Clearly the BMW owner doesn’t see the irony in his criticism of my friend “wasting his money”.

Cars are that important here now – it has almost become religious.

Down here in Haikou I’m told by residents that a few years ago the Chinese government rescinded a 200% tax on car purchases. This - along with a rapidly growing economy - opened the floodgates to tens of thousands of Chinese who had previously found car ownership to be unaffordable.

Now instead of the dusty old 1980’s cars, shiny new imports are everywhere. Those 1980’s cars are all but extinct in 2012.

With the influx of automobiles in this city, traffic is now grinding to a halt - with rush hour automobiles traveling slower than walking pace. Those who could afford cars prior to the government scrapping the 200% tax are wishing the tax still existed – for no other reason than to restore their freedom of mobility.

Despite the massive growth in car ownership, two-wheeled traffic still seemingly comprises the largest modal share among the available modes of transportation here.

I use my bicycle 7 days a week, and each time I take it out I am delighted to share the wide bike lanes with thousands of other people sporting two-wheeled vehicles – with electric scooters being the most common choice here.

The following photos show my grand entrance from the suburbs into the downtown core on that Sunday afternoon – highlighting one particular bottleneck that gets quite nasty at times.

Scooters and bicycles in Haikou, China

Pedaling in Haikou, Hainan, China – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

Scooters and bicycles in Haikou, China

Pedaling in Haikou, Hainan, China – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

Scooters and bicycles in Haikou, China

Pedaling in Haikou, Hainan, China – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

Scooters and bicycles in Haikou, China

Pedaling in Haikou, Hainan, China – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

Scooters and bicycles in Haikou, China

Pedaling in Haikou, Hainan, China – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

Scooters and bicycles in Haikou, China

Pedaling in Haikou, Hainan, China – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

While cars are starting to become immobile in Haikou, two wheeled vehicles keep the city moving - conveniently passing congested traffic in the wide separated two-wheeled lanes.

I am keenly interested to see how Chinese cities will evolve and address this massive influx of car ownership.

Until next time – keep your feet on those pedals.

James D. Schwartz is a Transportation Pragmatist and the Editor of The Urban Country. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com or follow him on Twitter.

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