Working without a net (maybe the dumbest thing I have done in Beijing)

I think China would be OSHA’s worst nightmare. There aren’t a lot of safety measures in place at least to the eye of a average person. As I travel around Beijing and other places in China, I notice things that would send an OSHA inspector to the mad house. Workers scrambling up bamboo scaffolding with no protection are a common sight. Hard hats do exist but not always. You see open manhole covers with no cones around them to warn people not to fall in. You see all sorts of unusual things that you just don’t see in the U.S. For example if you go to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall, you can ride a toboggan down back to the parking lot. It is fun but if that same ride were in the U.S. you would have to sign consent forms, there would be railing all the way down to prevent a speeding toboggan from leaving the track. There would be people yelling at you if you did anything remotely dangerous.

Sometimes I see it as refreshing. I see it as a world lawyers haven’t hermetically sealed for safety not just for the safety of the population but more to  protect  companies from getting sued. I like that there is still something called personal responsibility. It makes you pay attention! It makes you watch where you are going so you don’t fall into an open man-hole or walk under a falling building or walk in front of a speeding Beijing taxi etc. With so many ways to buy the farm here, you would think Chinese people would be nervous wrecks! They should be neurotic but they seem so calm much of the time.  Even when they are in a hurry they don’t seem to be thinking, don’t fall into that manhole! Watch out for that Taxi! I think to the Chinese mind, they just have to go around thinking positive thoughts. They must assume that nothing bad will happen to them. In fact much of the time I notice that people are singing, whistling and walking, hands behind their backs rolling walnuts in their palms. ( I think this helps the Qi or life energy). I think after a while one becomes intoxicated by this calm approach. You just assume nothing bad will happen and you feel like you did when you were a child, before you discovered all the ways the world can kill you.

This brings me to something that I probably wouldn’t have done in the US but did without much hesitation here. I found myself locked out of my apartment with a faulty door lock. I approached the lady who works in the office and told her in mandarin that my key won’t open the door. So she came up and tried. Then she said something about telephone and I figured it meant she was calling an expert. After a while a pair of maintenance men came up and tried the key for a while then they tried to pry the metal door open with a screwdriver, then pounded on the door for a while putting a bunch of small dents in it. My confidence in getting back into my apartment was not high. So as they are pounding and prying and bending and denting, I think to myself, hey I bet if I was inside I could just open it and whatever was stuck would un-stick!

I noticed a hallway window and after unlocking and sliding it open I noticed it was very close to my balcony windows. I reached out and found that my windows were unlocked so I climbed into the hallway window and reached around to my window. As I stepped onto my balcony railing, I think I heard a small voice in the back of my head say “ Mike you understand this is seven stories up right?” But I live in Beijing now and have adopted the “nothing bad will happen to me idea”! I stood on my railing and jumped down onto my balcony. Walked to the door and tried from the inside to open it. I could hear the guys outside step up their efforts when I moved the door handle. They must have thought Oh man! There is someone locked inside!!!

After realizing that I couldn’t open the door from the inside either I climbed back up on the balcony and over to the hallway window. Again no real thought of what was below me. The office lady saw me climbing down from the hallway window and that calm nothing bad can happen attitude seemed to fade from her. She was talking quickly and shaking her head and moving her hand side to side like saying NOOOOOOOOOO you don’t get it. Nothing bad can happen to us because we are Chinese!!! Lots of bad things can happen to you because you are a foreigner!!!!!!!!!!!  I realized she was trying to tell me that popping in and out of seventh story windows in not a good idea for a non-native.

It was only then that I remembered that I have a fear of being on the edge of high places. I am totally comfortable in an airplane, or any other heights but if you put me anywhere near the edge of high places, my knees get weak, my palms get sweaty and I get this queasy feeling inside my lower intestines. So as I waited for the new expert to come to open my door, I looked up from ground level at my open window and the open hall window and realized I am not Chinese!!!! I could have killed myself in a really stupid way. If that wasn’t enough realization, my girlfriend gave me my first skype scolding! Apparently she was not impressed with my solution-oriented approach to my door lock problem. I didn’t argue much.

A few things to remember when dealing with the superior female mind;

1)   Try not to justify too much.

2)   Try to recoup quickly with an apology and a promise that you won’t do it again. (at least not unless it is an emergency!)

3)   Try to remember that she just cares about you so that is why she is a little angry. 

Note the people in this graphic are not real. The information was not scientifically gathered. -Michael Paul Franklin