Wed 6 Dec - Hutong face-off

I saw a funny thing today. While on my way to the subway station, I saw two cars having found themselves head to head smack bang in the middle of a narrow hutong only wide enough for one of them. But rather than either driver reversing to the end of the hutong so both could then go on their merry ways, both men creating a verbal collision by getting out of their cars to defend their right of way. Neither were backing down and, as I left them to their own devices, I really pitied the poor rickshaw driver who found himself caught between the two of them.

Face is a powerful thing, but it can also be an incredible waste of time. Development is happening fast in China, but old culture also slows things down. I often wonder if it’s not merely red tape, but old ways and culture that get in the way of China becoming an efficient modern state. Does the current China really fit with a modern Western economy? Or is it just moving too fast for the whole of its society to catch up to. Or am I simply displaying a Western bias? I would have just immediately backed up my car, but it seems this is not the way things are done in China.