Submitted by Alex Stein on the 2016 winter session program in China sponsored by the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice..
There’s a little green man and he’s blinking. I only have a few seconds now. I pick up speed, darting my head back and forth looking for the looming threat of the Beijing Transit Bus, a big hulking figure filled to the brim with Chinese citizens, packed densely all headed to destinations unknown. I look back at the little green man but he longer exists, he’s been replaced by his scarier alter-ego, little red man. Now I’m in real trouble, a motorcycle whizzes past me, honking their horn for me to get out of his way. I quickly halt in my tracks, mere feet from the sidewalk. A quick head turn to my left and right and a quick hop and I’m safely back on the sidewalk. You would think I just beat one of the hardest levels in Frogger, but in reality, I just crossed a busy intersection in one of the world’s most densely populated cities, Beijing, China—a mecca of eastern civilization filled to the brim with ancient history, unique delicacies, and amazing architecture.
Navigating my way through Beijing’s busy streets and intersections has been a frantic, yet exhilarating, experience. It’s a place where rules don’t apply and common decency and respect for passers-by take a backseat to racing to your destination as fast as possible. If it sounds terrifying and heart-pounding then you’re not wrong, but it is also a amazing and sobering reminder that I am not in America anymore, and to be honest I can’t get enough of it.