Nanchang, waking up

As most of you know, I like to get up early and despite being 8 or so time zones away from home, I still get up early. 

As most of you know, Sarah loves to lounge in bed. Eleanor is her mother's child, happily snoozing away perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of her bed, flat on her back, arms raised over her head, legs akimbo. 

Our hotel room faces east, so when the summer sun breaks through the drapes, I'm up. I carefully and quietly readjust the drapes to block the light, but it hardly matters since it's roughly 5:30 in the ayem [©  Ted Schmidt, Sr.] and the only thing that might get these two up is the promise of the breakfast dim sum buffet on the 2nd floor, but that doesn't open for another hour.

I cannot turn on the light to read, turn on the tellyvizzion machine or fire up this computer, so I go out for a walk. 

It's ever so slightly cooler in the morning - think upper eighties in temp and humidity - and it's fairly easy to navigate. 

We're right in the middle of Nanchang's downtown, but even a cursory examination of the surrounding area shows me that the concept of zoning has not been given a chance to blossom here in Jianxi Province. Electric motor shop, noodle shop, a gynormous long-distance bus terminal, a recirculating pump repair shop, a four story sixty-flat residential building, a teeny grocery, a gas station, and finally a five-star hotel complex. 

N.B. If you've ever lost a remote control for any sort of stereo or audio equipment, I know where it is; yesterday, Hank and I took a walk and found an alleyway 6-8 blocks long filled with stalls that sold mostly old remote controls. Thousands and thousands and thousands of them...

So, Nanchang in the early morning is quiet, although the streets are still busy. The majority of the traffic is mopeds and bicycles, with the occasional packed to capacity bus. As the day progresses, cars and trucks begin to dominate street traffic, sending bicycles, motorcycles and mopeds to the relative safety of the sidewalks, endangering the pedestrian population.

The way in which traffic functions here is quite different from home. At home when we approach an intersection, we slow down and check the traffic. Here, a moped driver keeps her head down and simply drives headlong into the flow, scarcely recognizing the danger. 

I have a theory about it; I believe it is the precursor to a tenet of Christian Science. In Christian Science, to name the disease is to have the disease. In Nanchang driving, recognizing how terrifying the traffic actually is would keep you in your apartment curled up in a ball.

Yesterday, we were standing outside a government office waiting for our bus when two mopeds collided. There was a loud thump, a fair bit of cracked plastic and no one was hurt in the least, but the way the accident was resolved was telling. A middle-aged lady wagged her index finger at the young man who had t-boned her moped, they both looked around, picked up a few stray bits of their mopeds off the pavement and then were back on their way. The accident occured directly opposite a police station. An officer was backing his car out of a space and was looking directly at the incident. No messy reports to fill out.

Our group might have had a role in the incident - 17 laowei with Chinese babies in the middle of Nanchang. I'm pretty sure the young man was looking at us and not where he was heading...

Sarah and Eleanor are about to have their mid-morning siesta so I'll wrap it up for now...