{"id":2833,"date":"2010-02-02T20:29:17","date_gmt":"2010-02-03T04:29:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/of.jennism.com\/?p=2833"},"modified":"2010-02-02T20:29:17","modified_gmt":"2010-02-03T04:29:17","slug":"biking-in-asia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/of.jennism.com\/?p=2833","title":{"rendered":"Biking in Asia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last year when I returned from Thailand, I immediately missed the cool hearts.  That is, the laissez-faire attitude of the Thais.  Sure, bad things happen in life, but so it goes.  It&#8217;s not exactly excusing it, but to go with the flow and let irritation\/anger go.<\/p>\n<p>But there&#8217;s something interesting about traffic.  In Bangkok, I observed our taxi drivers getting irritated at the heavy traffic, but somehow they would always find a way to get from point A to point B by squeezing through cars.  Honking?  Less of an issue.<\/p>\n<p>In Vietnam at least in Saigon, there are barely any traffic lights.  Like most Westerners, I was frightened crossing the street.  Motorbikes kept going&#8230;with no stop in the traffic.  <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/circia\/4323971365\/\" title=\"IMG_2677 by jdng, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2782\/4323971365_6178fa1b52.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"IMG_2677\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The picture above was taken from a taxi, but when I was surrounded by amounts of traffic in every direction&#8230;of course I was too panicked too pull out my camera.  After reading guides online, I learned that Vietnamese drivers are polite.  So I would take a deep breath and nearly walked across the street blind.  It was if I had to trust everyone and slowly believe&#8230;<i>really believe<\/i> that nobody would hit me.<\/p>\n<p>What I thought was amazing&#8230;was like Thailand, the Vietnamese were not angry.  Yes in Saigon, I heard significantly lot more honking.  If there was a car and motorbike in the way, honking would ensue.  Although I was on vacation, it wasn&#8217;t the same as American honking.<\/p>\n<p>Biking in San Francisco has always been nerve-wracking for me.  Especially on streets lacking bike lanes.  I would bike up those streets where I have the right to take the lane, but cars could not stand it&#8230;and even if they got a chance to pass me, I would easily catch up to them at the next stop sign.  If blocked someone&#8217;s right turn, it was angry honking.  <i>Get out of my way!<\/i> the driver would scream.  As if the 10 seconds they would save&#8230;would really get them somewhere.  Everyone here in the states is treated as someone to blame.  Independent, because we can&#8217;t trust anyone.<\/p>\n<p>I biked a bit in Vietnam&#8230;and I did get honked at.  Sure, it was mostly friendly honking, but the honking was curiosity&#8230;or a <i>Sorry Miss, I am coming your way.  I am just letting you know that.<\/i>  In Asia, perhaps, it&#8217;s inward-looking.  We are all one&#8230;we act as one&#8230;and to cross the street, to ride on the street, we are all responsible for ourselves because we trust others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last year when I returned from Thailand, I immediately missed the cool hearts. That is, the laissez-faire attitude of the Thais. Sure, bad things happen in life, but so it goes. It&#8217;s not exactly excusing it, but to go with &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/of.jennism.com\/?p=2833\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/of.jennism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/of.jennism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/of.jennism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/of.jennism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/of.jennism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2833"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/of.jennism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2834,"href":"https:\/\/of.jennism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2833\/revisions\/2834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/of.jennism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/of.jennism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/of.jennism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}