How to cross roads in China

This has really confused me. My local friends have scolded me before, really surprised that I cross roads at my own free will, instead of waiting for the green man. Indeed in the UK, we 'wait for the little green man' while we are young, but at some stage of mature adulthood, we cross roads as we please, without causing any problems to police, society, traffic etc. A reasonable balance seems to have been reached.

Hong Kong is the same - crossing the road in the wrong place at the wrong time is jaywalking, a legal offence. But HK has one major difference with Shanghai. When the 'little green man' is on a green, then it is actually safe to cross. Indeed as a child, the motto repeated over and over again on TV was "wait for the little green man". School teachers would cross roads with five or six children all holding hands, all chanting "wait for the little green man".

Ironically here, it seems that at many if not all junctions, the motto is something more akin to "wait for the little green man, and then while you're crossing watch out for moving traffic coming from every direction except one, which we have conveniently stopped for you". Quite literally, whilst the traffic to your left may have stopped, cars can turn right on red, and at many junctions there are left-turn green light filters timed at the same time that pedestrians are supposed to cross.

This really confuses me, and almost got me into real serious trouble once. The less said about that the better I guess. Zebra crossings are the same - for example outside the super brand mall, where there is always foot-traffic on the way to and from lunch. People crossing the road there have to dodge taxis, and buses who really don't have any intention of slowing let alone stopping.

I read in the newspaper of how the majority of pedestrian traffic accidents related to children of migrant workers who were unfamiliar with city traffic systems. I also saw a parent trying to teach their child to wait for the green light. The boy (on his bicycle complete with stablising wheels) saw a gap in the traffic and went for it, leaving his mother behind, agasp.

The boy didn't understand waiting. It makes no sense. The migrant workers' children aren't going to understand. Heck I don't understand. It's so often more safe to cross when the little green man isn't lit. The little green man is a deceitful trickster here, not to be trusted.

It's tricky for me to unlearn decades of trust. Blind trust that I can cross the road and continue thinking about whatever I was thinking about. Daydream, chat on the phone. That's just not safe here, and I'm having to wake up to that.

I like to think that's a good metaphor for one of many things I am waking up to in China. Things are definitely different here. Not always in bad ways, just in different ways. It's an education. Or indeed a re-education.

It's good to challenge the way things 'have always been'. Admittedly it would be nice if I could see some logic in the ways things are here, but I accept that isn't always going to be possible at the moment.

Even today in lectures I looked at a process diagram (cause and effect diagram in fact) that a former senior BCG partner (guest professor) had drawn up. I commented to him that it was peculiar because it flowed from top right to bottom left. The convention is always to have the solution at the bottom right - that is to flow from top left to bottom right. The way books read.

We agreed that it was strange and silly - it doesn't really matter and yet to look at a diagram done the other way, it's uncomfortable. It's nice to experience bits of uncomfortability. I think it's a healthy part of my being out here.

Every day that my health is ok, my family and friend relations are doing ok, and I've learned a little something new, I'm glad to be out here. That's an oversimplification in fact - health isn't easy to maintain or guarantee here, and the learning part consumes time and energy which I often don't have. But anyway, more often than not it's worth it.