Everyone who’s ever been in Asia, knows that Asian traffic is the equivalent of chaos. Traffic consists of pedestrians, bicycles, scooters, electric bikes, motorcycles, tuk tuk’s, taxi’s, buses, trucks and everything in between. And by “everything in between”, I literally mean “everything”. A lot of bikes carry ‘trailers’ with massive loads of whatever you can imagine: chairs, cardboard, fruit, plants, shoes and yes, even fish!

Bicycles and scooters drive in between the pedestrians and, to everyone’s irritation, ring their bells or honk their horns as much as possible. The situation isn’t much better on the actual street. Taxi’s drive in the wrong direction, buses drive in the wrong lanes and almost all drivers think the road is their own private formula one track. Crossing the street is like running for your life. When you finally learn/dare to cross the street, it feels as a small personal victory! Surprisingly enough, there is some sort of structure in all this chaos. Besides the occasional scooter accident or a bike running you over, I’ve only seen one major traffic accident so far and I hope it stays this way.

Then, there is the subway! It’s easy, it’s fast and your best option to cross town. But during rush hour you will realize that every other person, not owning any of the previously mentioned modes of transportation, is sharing that same subway with you and all of a sudden… it’s not that easy any more.

Imagine:
rush hour.
Thousands of Chinese people.
Who cannot wait in line.
Who don’t have trouble pushing hard and are using their elbows to shove themselves in the subway.
Staring at you because you are foreign.
Summertime.
Humidity.
People sweating.
You have been pushed all the way to the back.
The only way to keep you from falling on top of the person behind you, is to hold on to the person in front of you.
And then… you realize that you have to get off at the next stop.
What do you do?
You fight your way through the crowd as you grasp for fresh air when all of a sudden the subway stops and you are “carried” out, together with the other thousand Chinese people who have to get off.

 European public transportation will never be the same.
European rush hour will never feel as rushed as it does here.
Nothing beats Chinese traffic!