A treatise about the normative framework of street-crossing in China
One could suppose that the everyday act of street-crossing in China would be governed by a mostly positivist normative framework, as constructed by the myriad of road safety laws, traffic regulations and local crossroad-related bylaws. While this supposition is not untrue, at least not in theory, it does not however correspond to the empirical reality of street-crossing in everyday China. Any Chinese resident well-acquainted with the act would agree with this. Furthermore, such a supposition ignores the many complexities of the contemporary Chinese normative system. Indeed, while a formalist rule of law does provide the background for the governance of street-crossing, many other legal orders provide a complementary and sometimes supplementary role. Thus, the everyday act of street-crossing is in fact the result of several public, private and hybrid forms of governance overlapping and interacting with each other. In other words, it is the product of legal pluralism as reflected in the flow of people across busy intersections during insane Chinese traffic times.
The simultaneous presence of several normative systems beget the question of their relationship to each other. Legal theorists have proposed many different ways to characterize the interactions between co-existing sources of law, each with their respective merits and shortcomings. For the purpose of this treatise, we will focus on a hierarchical approach. As mentioned, positive law plays an obvious --but not predominant-- role in shaping the normative structure of street-crossing. Rather, the prevalent element guiding confused pedestrian in navigating hazardous Chinese intersections is the influence of the masses. Despite being sometimes construed negatively as the tyranny of the majority, it is often much safer to follow the herd when making decisions regarding street-crossing, rather than attempting to cross according to rules of traffic. In this aspect, one is better off crossing a red light with a sea of other people, rather than trying to cross during a green light by their lonesome.
The second-most important normative system governing the act of Chinese street-crossing is the GOCS or Good Ol' Common Sense, often referred to in Quebec legal culture as the GBS (Gros Bon Sens). Indeed, regardless of traffic lights, if one cannot cross the street camouflaged within a mass of other street-crossers, the safest way is to simply look for a gap in the incoming onslaught of speeding cars and run for one's life. To successfully implement this decidedly unlegalist approach to street-crossing, a fundamental shift in our conception of car-honking is required. As a matter of fact, one must understand that in Chinese culture, the honking of cars, motorbikes, motorized vehicles and even bicycles is seen as a more preventive and curative measure. Therefore, motorists and cyclists will honk at any given moment during which they feel necessary to advise others of their presence. This does not mean that they will honk as a last-recourse to tell you what the motherbleeping you were frigging thinking about crossing the street like that. To the great surprise of this authors, the majority of cars and vehicles will actually slow down after honking in order to let you finish crossing the street in one piece, rather than speeding up and then berating you for almost getting run over and, god forbid, being in the way of their car/bike/vehicle. Notable exceptions to this courtesy are right-turning cars (run!!!), tramways and buses (speed up!) and generally impatient drivers (don't dawdle and use your common sense to dictate your pace?). It is only when one cannot rely on these non-legal principles to guide their behaviour that one should turn to traffic regulations in order to dictate their street-crossing patterns.
Of course, these three normative systems are not totally distinct nor autonomous from each other. In fact, the best way to cross a street in China would be to combine elements from all three approaches in order to create a more efficient and secure method of street-crossing. Nevertheless, when proceeding with this 'cheery-picking' exercise of norms and legal orders, one needs to bear in the mind that group behaviour is more desirable than the common sense approach, while positive formal regulations are subordinate to the role of both. Naturally, one should also not get too absorbed in these processes of ranking and following norms during the actual act of street-crossing, for that can be detrimental to the actual goal of the exercise described above: namely, to get to the other side of the road.
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[Apologies for the above, am suffering from spill-over scholarly discourse fetish from yesterday. I ended up staying in and almost pulling an all-nighter in order to finish the essay. The roomie, the Australian and I have decided to go hiking with another travel group on Saturday, instead. Should be fun!]
The simultaneous presence of several normative systems beget the question of their relationship to each other. Legal theorists have proposed many different ways to characterize the interactions between co-existing sources of law, each with their respective merits and shortcomings. For the purpose of this treatise, we will focus on a hierarchical approach. As mentioned, positive law plays an obvious --but not predominant-- role in shaping the normative structure of street-crossing. Rather, the prevalent element guiding confused pedestrian in navigating hazardous Chinese intersections is the influence of the masses. Despite being sometimes construed negatively as the tyranny of the majority, it is often much safer to follow the herd when making decisions regarding street-crossing, rather than attempting to cross according to rules of traffic. In this aspect, one is better off crossing a red light with a sea of other people, rather than trying to cross during a green light by their lonesome.
The second-most important normative system governing the act of Chinese street-crossing is the GOCS or Good Ol' Common Sense, often referred to in Quebec legal culture as the GBS (Gros Bon Sens). Indeed, regardless of traffic lights, if one cannot cross the street camouflaged within a mass of other street-crossers, the safest way is to simply look for a gap in the incoming onslaught of speeding cars and run for one's life. To successfully implement this decidedly unlegalist approach to street-crossing, a fundamental shift in our conception of car-honking is required. As a matter of fact, one must understand that in Chinese culture, the honking of cars, motorbikes, motorized vehicles and even bicycles is seen as a more preventive and curative measure. Therefore, motorists and cyclists will honk at any given moment during which they feel necessary to advise others of their presence. This does not mean that they will honk as a last-recourse to tell you what the motherbleeping you were frigging thinking about crossing the street like that. To the great surprise of this authors, the majority of cars and vehicles will actually slow down after honking in order to let you finish crossing the street in one piece, rather than speeding up and then berating you for almost getting run over and, god forbid, being in the way of their car/bike/vehicle. Notable exceptions to this courtesy are right-turning cars (run!!!), tramways and buses (speed up!) and generally impatient drivers (don't dawdle and use your common sense to dictate your pace?). It is only when one cannot rely on these non-legal principles to guide their behaviour that one should turn to traffic regulations in order to dictate their street-crossing patterns.
Of course, these three normative systems are not totally distinct nor autonomous from each other. In fact, the best way to cross a street in China would be to combine elements from all three approaches in order to create a more efficient and secure method of street-crossing. Nevertheless, when proceeding with this 'cheery-picking' exercise of norms and legal orders, one needs to bear in the mind that group behaviour is more desirable than the common sense approach, while positive formal regulations are subordinate to the role of both. Naturally, one should also not get too absorbed in these processes of ranking and following norms during the actual act of street-crossing, for that can be detrimental to the actual goal of the exercise described above: namely, to get to the other side of the road.
***
[Apologies for the above, am suffering from spill-over scholarly discourse fetish from yesterday. I ended up staying in and almost pulling an all-nighter in order to finish the essay. The roomie, the Australian and I have decided to go hiking with another travel group on Saturday, instead. Should be fun!]