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2006-11-04 News

An update to SageGeorgesSaga, containing an “aquatic” traffic analogy.


From: SageGeorge? Sent: Saturday, November 04, 2006 11:56 PM To: dwobbe@rogers.com Subject: Re: I sent you an eCard from BlueMountain?.com

Hi Donna,

Thank you for the Halloween card. Your cards are always a delight.

Over here, there was a party, costumes required, put on by one of the American teachers. Given the apparently scarce resources for costume making, the results were quite impressive. A couple of people had theirs made up at the small local tailor shops. The winner was a devil/angel costume. From the left side, it was an angel, Viewed from the right, it was a devil.

As good as the costumes were, the highlight of the evening was listening to the stories about getting to the party. There are not too many foreigners in Jiaxing. As a result, we stand out like sore thumbs where ever we go. Now, just try to imagine the ruckus created when a couple of those ‘foreign devils’ in full costume try to hail a taxi! Just another night in China.

The school where I am teaching is a couple of miles ot of the built up are of the city. Getting back and forth between the school and the apartment can mean a long wait for a bus or a taxi. After a couple of half hour waits, I decided to buy an electric scooter. I had been considering one for a while, but was intimidated by the thought of driving in the traffic.

Try to imagine two schools of fish swimming through each other. These fish are minnows. These are the pedestrians. Now a group of larger and faster fish comes through the first two schools of fish. The larger fish are the bikes. Sometimes the bikes swim with the smaller fish, sometimes they swim with the larger fish. There are a few very large and fast fish, these are cars. Sometimes the small fish swim the same direction as the large fish. Oftentimes the large fish swim the opposite direction through the smaller fish. Did I mention the hermit crabs? These are small to medium size crabs that carry a large hunk of the ocean on their back…I have enclosed some pictures of these guys. They are not my pictures, but are very typical of the traffic here. Usually hermit crabs move very slowly. Many times the smaller fish stop swimming to look at the hermit crabs. This causes confusion.

Quite often, a smaller fish will get tired of swimming. The small fish waves at a taxi crab. The taxi crab will cut across a whole school of fish to pick up his passenger. These crabs can move very fast.

As the fish get older and bigger, they go to different schools. Some fish end up in the College of Sturgeons. But the biggest fish go to the University of Whales. In the swim, there is a rule that says “Might is Right”. Big trucks and buses have this rule on their side. These guys can stop any where they might want to stop. They can swim against the traffic. They make traffic quite exciting for all the other fish.

So Donna, the next time that you see a lovely Technicolor clip of reef fish somewhere in the South Seas, you have a pretty good idea of what driving here is all about. It’s really quite different from good old Toronto!

Take care… George


One of the attached images …

BlindSpotBhe:BlindSpot

Finally; a rear view mirror without a blind spot!

http://janus.datafix.com/hwo/images/GdR00611.17.jpg

  • submitted by GdR(with others), – HwO
  • Note that if you could see clearly in the mirror, it’s George! – RsT
    • Update as of 2007-01 - George has muchased a motorized bicycle with a (1/4 hp engine) and has moved into the driver’s seat.
      • This has given rise to a set of …Tales that are (if nothing else) enlightening with respect to the comparative RePp ( Rights, Entitlements, Powers & Priviliges ) available in the Occidental and Oriental worlds.

WiP

  • Consider posting this in one of the FlickR groups as a test to see if its legitimate copy-right holder can be contacted.
    • The humor groups might be a good place to start.
    • Make sure there is a clear statement of ‘intent’ to minimize any potential problems.
  • An interesting “threshold” test for Technological Change would be to automate this process. For example…
    • How soon will it be possible for a web spider to crawl GooGle looking to identify the person in the mirror’s reflection, in order to gain the ExplicitExpressedInformedConsent that some provacy groups are advocating?

Categories: Aj