That's it. Somehow they always seem to choose the worst path when walking near you, you'll be so far away and somehow they'll still inconvenience your walking or nearly bump into you.
Idk if this is universal across China, or maybe I'm just really unlucky.
Nope, it's not just you. I am a very fast walker and felt like my brain was constantly playing the subway surfer in Shanghai. Bloody hell is it annoying.
Fair enough. I live in Chengdu and people love to walk slowly. I'm not even in a rush I just naturally walk fast and people will legitimately just stop in the middle of the path with multiple people with zero regard for everyone around them.
They had to put up a wall in front of my condo because people kept walking into the street and getting hit by cars instead of using the crosswalk
Were they too distracted on their phones? I always see people blindly cross the stress cus they’re glued to their phone
It was the same before mobile phones where invented.
Ha, interesting! I’ve always wondered why so many people here seem to lack a sense of self preservation
My mother in law loves to blindly walk into traffic and she doesn’t even bring her phone out with her half the time. Absolutely infuriates me and she’s totally oblivious as to why…
I don’t think so . They just don’t want to walk further down the street to the real crosswalk. + bad spatial awareness seems extremely common over here lol
our radar is to avoid people and find a non collision path. their radar is the exact opposite. to go in your place first. same for scooters. if you cross paths, they aim at you. (crazy!) 11 years in China, I observed this for years.
example: a guy walked towards me on an empty sidewalk. I was on the left, he was on the right. he was totally watching his phone so did not see anything in his surrounding. kept approaching me. the moment he came closer he changed his direction, went into an angle directly into me. (radar)
this happens a lot. look out for it and you will notice.
Not only from the front, but also from behind. I have gone to pass an old lady on an empty sidewalk only for her to start angling left to block me. It’s like they have sonar.
They turn invisible corners. It's like you're not allowed to walk past someone. They also have no understanding of vectors, especially when driving. Like I'll start to go across a crossing but pass behind a car and they'll see me and slam on the breaks because they think I'm walking in front. They don't understand I'm walking slow to cross them behind.
This or walking in zigzag or just bumbling along without a clue
I never heard someone describe it this way but I think I already notice it. Hard agree
😂😂😂😂😂😂 all I can do is just laugh when reading this. I’m coming to visit in March and I guess this is something I need to be prepared for
Nope, definitely has to be a universal thing in China. I’m in Shenyang. My god, it’s so annoying. But oh well, what can you do.
I'm in Shenyang too! Omg
Oh wow so cool! Are you studying here?
Hey, I'm also in Shenyang! Dongbei party!
A rip roaring dong-bell party, crossing pork swords like a throbbing veiny mass of bamboo snakes getting ever greasier and more purple until, in one swift movement, the dam of harpies' yoghurt is unleashed and the wrinkly stones are bathed in opaque salty batter coating the folded skin and spider-leg hair alike.
Haha
Yes!
I guess that’s why 好狗不挡路 exist probably prone to it hey it’s a feature
I had this today. I was standing in a park, nobody was around, and an older couple came walking by and somehow managed to brush against me. There was like 20m either direction of me of unoccupied walking space.
a few times I've been on a path where 3-4 young women, walking abreast and taking up the whole sidewalk refuse to move so I either have the choice of stepping off or banging into them. I stand still and force them to give way and I hear them saying shit about stupid foreigners. idc lol
entitled princesses
This happens to me all the time in Shanghai. They seem to have zero consideration for others in public.
It’s to purposely make you walk out of his way. A game of chicken.
yeah... don't be a p*ssy and keep walking, they'll avoid you if they see you don't budge
Just wait till you try driving. Same story, far greater consequences for failure.
To retain my sanity, I treat it like a fun game - like, what kind of stupidity, selfishness, or aggressiveness will I observe today, I wonder!?
Now when this happens (which is often) I just stand perfectly still with a straight face and wait for them to make up their damn mind to which way they’re going. Once they are passed me I carry on.
On a regular mood, I just go with the flow and don’t care much. But if I’m strolling to chill out and that happens, I agree that’s the best approach to a very annoying and constant inconvenience here in China.
Complete lack of spatial awareness.
It's even better when you extent it to driving!
I totally love those videos on 小红书! Please keep them coming!
My Chinese wife is quite a small person, yet just navigating our home I find she's almost always blocking doorways or being in the way.
If I'm cooking I have to shoo her out of the kitchen else she'll just be a constant hazard.
LOL, I too have a rule that if I am cooking, wifey cannot be in the kitchen (it's tiny).
I am also constantly reminding her that doorways are not a good place to stand and check your phone, etc.
Blocking doorways is very interesting. Even when they hold the door open for you, they stand right in the doorway, pushing the door open. And they gesture for you to come through. Like how? Do I just... push you? Do they not know where their body is situated? I always found that interesting. Like, they're being nice. But man...
And yes... the kitchen thing is also quite common it seems.
What’s the psychological reason behind?
What do you mean like get in your way?
It’s a advanced mental model. Always keep this in mind. When you get in the way of someone, it’s actually they gets in your way.
Get a scooter bro, skip those damn pedestrian gauntlets
Yeahhhh same problem but with e-bikes instead of people. So, make a choice between being bumped into and being bit annoyed, and ending up flat on your back looking up at a bunch of old 叔叔s smoking fags looking down at you discussing how you are a 老外.
It’s so funny how much they have to constantly reiterate to us that we are foreigners as if we don’t know that. I don’t think any foreigner in China is trying to genuinely be “Chinese”. Especially considering there’s so much to criticize them for which they don’t realize lol. I am proud to be a foreigner lol. The only reason many of us have come here is because life is more safe than our home countries (especially the west) and also it’s a lot less expensive and to study. The ego with some of them pertaining this topic is just insane to me.
But how do they know they're Chinese if they can't talk about us being foreigners.
Never had that happen before. The one time I took a tumble off it nobody came to help me, they just watched me scream for a bit and then gradually limp up, pick up my scooter and drive off as they walked on by
What are those characters? (I can't read Chinese but recognize this phenomenon all too well)
叔叔（shūshu）means “uncle” and 老外（lǎowài）is the informal way of saying “foreigner”.
Nah, get a car. It is even more fun and excitement. You have to deal with chaotic pedestrians, crazy Ayis on their small bikes, Shushus on blue tin tricycles, cars which drivers do not care about any rules and big trucks trying to crush on any chance.
I feel like I see at least one e-bike accident a week (I walk to and from work, and walk my dog a lot).
Not sure they are much better on bikes.
Always staring at the phone...
Chinese have a reputation globally for completely lacking spatial awareness. Looks like it happens in China too
But why though? I have noticed it with the Chinese in Australia too.
I could throw reasons around like growing up in densely populated areas where you don't have much space to move means you don't grow an awareness of the movements of yourself because you're always forced to run into people and/or go with the crowd.
But really I have no idea. Typically the more dense the population the more comfortable people are with standing right next to someone else with no personal space in between, whereas less dense populations would find that uncomfortable
It used to annoy me even when I saw someone walking straight at another person when there's plenty of space to both walk on the right. Never mind when a group of people takes up the entire width of the sidewalk, forcing you to squeeze past. Or people going against traffic and cutting right in front of you (especially older women), etc. etc. An daily source of frustration.
In the end I decided to just not take note of how people behave in public spaces at all and started weaving around people at my own pace. Probably the best thing I did for my peace of mind.
I think it’s linked to the fact that they have no « need » for spatial awareness for security purposes.
In the west, you always need to have an understanding of your surrounding (someone sus ? road direction ? dog poop on the way ? ) so you need to anticipate and react.
Chinese people are just in public space like nothing can happen so they don’t even look for the clues I listed above. No anticipation = always reacting late.
This makes no sense because only in China have I encountered missing man hole covers with no safety fencing up (not to mention the more common “footpath completely blocked by parked scooters” scenario). Spatial awareness for safety is paramount.
As we drive on the left hand side of the road, my propensity is to swerve left so my right knee is sore now from having to sudden stop and launch myself out of the way.
Youtube: china car crash compilations
sounds irrelevant?
Look at the pedestrians in the videos
Nah its the same everywhere, they have little to no environmental awareness. Perks of living in a country so safe I guess (?)
Walking my youngest to school in the morning, a crossing just went so there is a hoard of people coming at us and we are on the grass almost and the goard coming at us doesn't move and takes up the entire footpath 6 ppl wide. I just stand there and people often still walk into me.
We take a little scenic path sometimes. 3 ppl wide and we like to walk fast. Somehow we always get stuck behind two ppl walking slow not making room for others to pass. Even when you shalom louder to announce presence.
This is every day.
In saying that there is also lots of people that are aware. The issue is there is enough that are oblivious you can't avoid them.
They are usually not in any hurry. Unlike me who wants to drop my kid and get back to my day asap.
Lol I've got bad news for you, westerners do it too but they're downright mean about it. I remember when I first came to Phoenix being shocked at all the motherfuckers who would run into me with their carts while I was standing fucking stationary at a store, then scoff at me like it was my fault. No concept of spacing out on sidewalks either.
Every day in traffic is like this too, constant needless going out of the way to switch lanes as I switch lanes behind them (after signalling for a few seconds while they don't at all) or cut me off then go slow as fuck for 12 miles blocking everyone behind them because (???).
Japan (and Taiwan) took all the spatial awareness stats in East Asia
What about Korea?
Not sure if this is the reason, but some chinese cities are so crowded that it'll take 100% of your energy to make sure you aren't bumping into someone, stepping on someone's toes, blocking someone's way, etc, when you're outside. After spending a decade living in a less crowded country before coming to live with mainland chinese family, it was practically impossible to replicate the same behaviour in China without ending up exhausted at the end of the day. So I'm not surprised if most people who live their full time just said 'fuck it' and decide they'll stop caring about being spacially aware altogether.
This is so funny because my whole life whenever I walk with my mum next to me, she always walks into me and will brush me or bump me up to a few times a minute. Even when we’re side by side walking together! And it annoyed me so much and I would always ask her why she can’t walk in a straight line when we’re literally walking next to each other. Turns out it’s some odd cultural norm
It’s even worse in Japan lol
Backup of the post's body: That's it. Somehow they always seem to choose the worst path when walking near you, you'll be so far away and somehow they'll still inconvenience your walking or nearly bump into you.
Idk if this is universal across China, or maybe I'm just really unlucky.
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I noticed some people are very sensitive to this matter. I went to China often and never noticed this, but once a friend of mine came with he always complained about it.
I ran into a lot of people biking around Beijing and clipped them; I felt awful about it, but they were all cellphone zombies.
This does remind me of one of my Chinese friends saying, and it's stuck with me over the years, as to how citizens navigate life. "In life in China, you have to decide which way to operate, whether it's the right or the wrong way, and the third way ( grey area), I will always choose the third way.
This guy is one of the biggest hustlers I have ever met, heard always had a plan. A second job, an idea to make money, was also one of my first true friends in Chian after seven years, I owe that man a lot ... mainly he gave me some of the best advice on having a healthy relationship, people are nuanced and I miss the hell out of some of my old friends and neighbors.
It could be that the fast-paced lifestyle in big cities in China makes people often look at their phones while walking.
I live in a place that gets A LOT of Chinese tourists. One time, during Covid, I was at a pharmacy and 4 chinese girls came in as I was waiting my turn at the check out line.
There were signs every where to keep your distance (and I know they had similar policies in China).
They queue up behind me. When I say behind me, I mean ass to dumpling. Like, not only could I feel her breath on me, but I could feel her chest on my back.
I take a step forward to at least get some space. What do they do? They fucking congaline that shit, so we're a human centipede again.
I take another step forward and blade my body so that I'm almost at a 45 degree angle with them. She damn near knocked herself out on my shoulder.
Luckily I managed to take another half step and by then it was my turn to pay and leave.
Holy shit. I know in China this was also strongly opposed, so wtf was that about?
Two times late at night I was the only bicycle on the road and a couple of dingleberries still found a way to walk out in the road and stop right in front of me. The second one pulled off the curb and did a half u turn and just stopped. The road was wet and i slide while breaking almost bailing on the bike and taking them out too. I just yelled 注意点儿 and storm off in a huff and they look at me like I’m the a hole and they weren’t the problem.
The worst is when the elevator door opens and you go to step out and someone pushes their way in. Actually the worst thing in china (outside of animal abuse)
They freeze when collision is imminent. I observed it even in those pedalling ducks on some lakes, just no reaction at all, leaving all the evasive manoeuvring to you. Same with walking, driving, elevator, no logic module.
Well you've your advantages when all of them look tiny compared to you, and touch your biceps and shoulders and call you 'ohh you're so strong'. They walk to avoid me more or less he he he.
I'm a big guy and call bullshit. Being larger means they are more likely to walk into you. They aren't looking and they seem to have a 面子-based 'chicken' mentality to bouncing stubbornly off the big laowai
They must want to hang out with you. Would you please post a pic of yourself?😂