Crossing the street in China is always an... "adventure." There are many designated crosswalks, but in general everywhere is a cross walk. In larger cities, like Beijing, the city has built barriers down the middle of the streets leaving access to cross only at the crosswalks. This keeps most people from crossing in the wrong place, but we've still seen people jumping over the barriers too.Above is a photo from a street in our city. Notice the layers of people and cars. Generally the method of crossing the street involves crossing halfway, waiting while standing on the tiny median (less than one foot wide) and crossing the other halfway when the coast is clear. The good thing is that people always cross the street like this, so when the cars pass you as you are waiting on the median they will swerve a little to give you some space. We enjoy the area of our city where we live because the streets are wide and there's little traffic. This means that often we can cross all the way across the street!
Lastly, for those of you wondering, there is no understanding here of "the pedestrian has the right of way." It's usually, "whoever has the biggest vehicle and wants to go faster has the right of way." Does this make you excited about visiting China?
