Chaos is the natural order in China*

Take traffic as a metaphor. Cars, bikes, motorcycles, electric bikes, scooters, pedestrians, bike trucks and three-wheelers all use the same corridors all at the same time and in all directions. Yet I have seen fewer accidents here than in the states where traffic flows are segregated, regulated, and (by virtue of suppression) aggravated. There is no predictable pattern to who passes whom on which side, nor does size or velocity win right of way or even try to claim it. People just go, and they just go in a seamless interactive dance that never stops for child, bus, nor elderly. No one makes an abrupt move, a sharp turn, a furtive move. No squirrelly indecision comes in to play because everyone is calculating their moves based on everyone else’s displacement. Stopping is the wrench in the machine. Yet in the name of progress and modernity, there are intersections here equipped with the familiar red, amber, and green lights. Never could anyone have predicted how such an arbitrary and useless convulsion of control could cause so much interruption to the basic function of Chinese life: movement.

Now extend the metaphor. If the natural order is to just go and do things as readily and simply as possible, then requiring people to stop and follow procedure is like putting a fish on a bicycle. And so you have the ultimate paradox: traffic lights cause traffic jams and governmental/institutional regulations cause insane disruptions and delays to every simple process. But this is really the crux of how difficult it is to “modernize” in the global community. “Westernize” is what it means to superimpose modern infrastructure over organic cities, and western systems require centuries of western sensibilities to function. No one is going to swim against the river and obey no smoking signs or use rubbish bins or refrain from shouting, spitting, shoving or staring just because it would help make the place more 'orderly' - what ever that means. I would guess that the sensibility of Chinese people at a four way stop, for example, would be never to stop if a) other cars are stopped, or b) there are no cars in sight, or c) there are people or scooters or bicycles, because everyone knows they can just swerve around each other so there is no need to stop. And so it follows that trying to institute 'orderly' systems is tacitly ineffectual.

But China wants to be respected as a contemporary to the other powerful nations and so the government must exert governmental control. And what else is government than an entity which issues policy? And what else is policy than regulation? And how better can we be regulated than to fill out a request in triplicate and go to four different bureaus to get each copy stamped and wait for the proper provincial departments to place their seal on it and have you go back to get it registered (with the appropriate photographs, doctor’s exam, and leave your passport for a week and that’ll be 800RMB by the way). And did I mention that you wait in one line to get a ticket so that you can wait in the other line and never does anyone take that ticket so you stuff it into your pocket with the other 5-7 tickets you get everyday for everything from a bowl of noodles to entering a temple to riding a bus (it’s not a transfer, it’s not anything, really). Yes, paperwork and tickets and stamps. These are the signs of progress, and because they are regulating against everything that would naturally fall like an apple from a tree, it takes a very, very, very long time to conduct official transactions. Or to ‘officially’ get across the street.

*An American friend and colleague here at Lanzhou Jiaotong University made the statement, "Chaos is the natural order in China" to help explain just about everything to me. It does.