I was going to write about how the Chinese traffic police always seem to have their car’s emergency lights flashing. I was going to go through the different stages of trying to work out the flashing lights rationale:

1. When they are driving the lights are flashing

2 When the engine is running the lights are flashing

3. When they are in the car the lights are flashing

Number 4 was the doozy:  I saw a bunch of police standing around their car, sipping bottled tea and eating steamed buns with the lights on the car flashing.

Unfortunately, yesterday I saw a police car drive past without its lights flashing, so my whole theory about police cars rolling off the assembly line with their lights flashing was ruined.

Here is a picture of some police. Notice the lights are not flashing. That’s because they aren’t traffic police.

Every morning I ride to school through the local village. I love the village. It is the home of more than you can eat dumplings for less than an Aussie dollar. It is also the home of cheap beer Friday. However it is also the place where I feel slightly unmanned twice a day.

I can’t handle dirty and disgusting and the village has it in spades. I do my best and cope with most of the horrors the village has to offer, but the water that leaks across the road each day is too much. I try to avoid thinking about where the water comes from and why it is always in those couple of places and I usually succeed in swallowing my gorge, gritting my teeth and cautiously trucking riding on through.

The main spot is one particular corner where I cannot avoid the sluice completely and if it is particularly bad I have to ride through it for more than a few meters. I have nightmares about being splashed by one of the infrequent cars that zip by or even worse, falling off into the filthy stuff. Today however was a new challenge. It has bloddy frozen!

So now it is not only disgusting, but trecherous. I’m gonna have to find a new way to go.

Here is a pic of the village.

M got a new haircut on the weekend.

We also managed to go downtown and have a look at Tiananmen square.

I can’t blog about the dangerousness that went on in Beijing on Friday night without having my blog blocked in China, so I won’t mention it; I wasn’t there so I was perfectly safe. I am tempted to find a way to get stories like this out, because most people don’t find out about them because they are suppressed by the caring and benevolent giant.

Instead I will mention the nerd network I have hooked up with. I went to a games store today and met a bunch of guys that play the same nerdy games I do. They have invited me to come down and play with them next time they meet which is nice. The best part was that the breakdown was just like a group of western gamers. A bunch of them were overweight, a few were smelly and most were badly dressed and had funny laughs; it was like the promised land. Al Lay Loo Yar!

No school for me today. No time to blog we’re off to frolic.

I passed the test this morning which means now I can forget all the stupid crap I had to memorize for the test. Yay!

Driving to and from the office of the Traffic Control Department of the Public Security Organ with all the rules floating around my head was quite an experience. I got to witness the shear disregard the Chinese have for the rules as well as each other on the road. I wonder how long it will take me to drive like a moron local. In Turkey it took me a few days. In Croatia it took me almost a week. Hmmm.

Here is a link to a shortened version of the rules for the roads in China. Some of the questions are worded so poorly that you have to memorize the answer without knowing exactly what they meant it to mean.

I have to take my drivers test again on Saturday and I am pretty stressed about it. It’s not that I don’t know what to do on the road, it’s a learning style thing. Apparently the way you learn in China is to wrote memorise specific answers to questions and then match them up in a test. No wonder they are all such safe drivers here.

It gets to the point where I think, maybe I shouldn’t get behind the wheel here. Some of the questions want you to answer no when the answer is logically yes. That is the worst part. One fine (right or wrong) example is: the passengers and pedestrians must act in accordance with the traffic laws of the People’s Republic of China. You would think the answer to this is right, but it is in fact wrong. From a legal standpoint the passengers and pedestrians do have to obey the traffic rules, however the test wants you to have memorised the whole quote from the rule book which mentions drivers, passengers and pedestrians. So the correct answer for the test is wrong.

My current favourite question is:

When a motorized vehicle breaks down on the expressway, the persons on board should swiftly move to the front of the vehicle for hiding. WTF

M had her first Trick or Treating experience last night. We were joined by our friends Javie and James and their kids Aixa, Alexandra and Alia, as well as Gabby Tebo and her parents Cara and Travis. The whole complex was completely mental by six pm and there were people everywhere. We met up with various swarms along the way as we tried to denude the complex of chocolates and lollies before any else could. Here are the girls sitting on the porch of  their latest victim.

Today it snowed and snowed and snowed. M ate, rolled in, punched, kicked, swam through, stomped on and threw snow, the whole time chuckling. By the end of the snow half hour she was pink cheeked like Santa.

We also had our driver’s tests downtown which was a total bust. 27 people from school headed down to do the test and the pass was set at 90%. I got 89%. I was pretty pissed off with myself, until I realised that only three people actually passed. The ultimate joke is that they let the Chinese people drive.

Before anyone yells racism at me, you have to witness the nightmare that is the Beijing roads. The only law on the street here is “do unto others before they do unto you.” It really bugged me to fail the ridiculous (poorly translated) test, especially considering I have been driving since the end of 1992, when the number of cars in China, that were not government owned and operated was 87.