epiphany

Roadside Anime

The city installed stoplights near my apartment while I was away. In fact, I noticed that they've installed new stoplights several places en route to one of Dalian's bigger shopping centers. While undoubtedly a good thing overall, I have to admit that I'll miss the occasional taxi ride madly careening through a blind intersection, wondering whether or not cross traffic might somehow be able to see you when you can't see it.

Additionally, I'm a great fan of international warning signs. For about 10 years now, I've thought it would be terrifically fun to come up with simplified graphic illustrations of potential carnage resulting from seemingly insignificant sources or actions. I think the baby flying through the air with its car seat (the one on the back of your visor--at least if you have a newer Honda) is absolutely hilarious, though my all-time favorite is one from a furnace/water-heater thingy. I really don't know what the machine did, but I do know that if I turned a certain lever, the room and I would be enveloped in a lake of fire.

Which leads me to crossing the street. Crossing the street in China is reminiscent of Frogger, minus the river and alligators. The advantage of playing Frogger is that you have a bird's-eye-view. In China, there are specific places marked as crosswalks, but rarely do they have a traffic signal by them, and never will the traffic actually stop for someone in a crosswalk. You learn to ignore the occasional walk/don't walk signals and cross lane by lane, stopping to wait for a clearing ahead of you while cars begin to zoom behind you.

So, while riding the bus down my newly traffic-lighted road the other day, I saw a brand new warning sign. Two pudgy stick figures dash across their triangular yellow background, a purse trailing in the air behind them. Yes, the figures for the crosswalk were actually madly running, Frogger-style, across their little painted street. And they were indeed Asian-cutified children's anime-style little fatties. That might just edge out the flying baby as my second all-time-favorite warning sign.