Zhongshan Lu
Feb. 10th, 2012 11:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
khiemtranZhongshan [1] Road is Xiamen's pedestrianized main shopping street. The only problem is, if you're standing on the waterfront, just how does a pedestrian get there?
Not a good photo, but that's a multilane highway between me and Zhongshan Road, with an anti-pedestrian barrier in the middle and not a crossing in sight.
However, in China, if there aren't people jaywalking slowly across the highway, that usually means there's another way somewhere. This is where it might be handy to be able to read Chinese.
The bottom sentence reads "Please use the underpass."
I followed the arrow (for what seemed like a lot more than 50m), and aha!
There was also a funny moment as I went down the steps in front. One of the hawkers inside called out "English map!" as I walked past. I meant to say that I didn't need one, but blurted out Mei yong!, "Useless!", instead. The lady just laughed.
Out again! Now to head back to Zhongshan Rd...
And into the crowd...
And, as usual, watch out for the sharks...
[1] Most cities in China will have something named after "Zhongshan", the most common Chinese name of Sun Yat-sen. The characters mean "Middle" and "Mountain" and Dr. Sun first picked it up as an alias in Japan (it's pronounced "Nakayama" in Japanese, but spelt with the same characters).
Not a good photo, but that's a multilane highway between me and Zhongshan Road, with an anti-pedestrian barrier in the middle and not a crossing in sight.
However, in China, if there aren't people jaywalking slowly across the highway, that usually means there's another way somewhere. This is where it might be handy to be able to read Chinese.
The bottom sentence reads "Please use the underpass."
I followed the arrow (for what seemed like a lot more than 50m), and aha!
There was also a funny moment as I went down the steps in front. One of the hawkers inside called out "English map!" as I walked past. I meant to say that I didn't need one, but blurted out Mei yong!, "Useless!", instead. The lady just laughed.
Out again! Now to head back to Zhongshan Rd...
And into the crowd...
And, as usual, watch out for the sharks...
[1] Most cities in China will have something named after "Zhongshan", the most common Chinese name of Sun Yat-sen. The characters mean "Middle" and "Mountain" and Dr. Sun first picked it up as an alias in Japan (it's pronounced "Nakayama" in Japanese, but spelt with the same characters).
