Street Sweeping

It has been almost 20 years since I spent the winter months in a part of China that has winter. My closest encounter in the interim was a night in Shanghai when I missed my connection to Haikou some eight years ago. I went running in the morning wearing only the shorts and t-shirt I planned to use in Hainan and boy did my arms get cold.

This time I am intentionally in Chongqing for Spring Festival and the weather is not nearly so harsh. Chongqing is substantially south and west of Shanghai. Being south makes it warmer, and being west makes it darker in the morning. The late sunrise, combined with an incessant rain, meant that I could see very little as I was running this morning. I was constantly stopping, taking off my glasses, checking for curbs and other obstacles that might appear, then moving along again. Given all that I prefer to run in the road proper if there is not much traffic.

Well that is what I was doing, right along the edge of a series of parked cars, when I noticed a shadow directly in my path. I slowed, not sure if what was coming was substantial or just a play of the weak streetlights through the trees. When I bumped into it, and the brooms fell over, I knew what it was. A card from one of the innumerable workers who still sweep the streets in the early morning. I had gotten used to dodging the brooms as they move along oblivious to the traffic around them. This time is was me who was oblivious, the sweepers card was stationary so there was no motion to alert my senses.

I'd slowed down enough so I just bumped the cart. I backed up, said sorry (in English no less) and started on my way again. But I was far to slow in my apology for it even to be heard, for the string of invective that came from the women the cart belonged to was not to was not to be interrupted. I considered stopping, and apologizing again, but there seemed little hope that I could actually appease her. So I continued on, but even that was not enough to deter her. Her curses followed me as a made my way up the street and never stopped, only faded.

I assume she never saw my foreign face, and was just letting go because she had been wronged. Still, I was surprised by the persistence of her cursing. It was almost as if she expected me to shout back (the only thing people in Chongqing would be likely to do) and was mad that I did not have the courtesy to do so. It seems there are elements of street etiquette that still escape me.