Just Walk…

Generally speaking, I’m a fan of jay walking. Partially because I refuse to buy the premise that streets are “for cars” and the rest of us are lucky to even get a brief turn to scurry across. But mostly because I’m an adult and feel confident in my ability to look both ways and make a choice. (She says having nearly stepped in front of a bus because she forgot to look right in Singapore!) Whatever, I’m good in countries where traffic approaches from the correct side and very much appreciate the “look right” warning when overseas. It makes me wonder how many American tourists had to die before the government decided it was cheaper to paint attention directing arrows on all the crosswalks than to scrape dum-dums off the street. The point is though, 40 some-odd years and counting and—knock on wood—I haven’t gotten hit yet; I’m pretty confident in my street crossing abilities. Until we got to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam…

There there aren’t even any stop lights to wait for. You have to jay walk whether you want to or not. It’s wild! Luckily Jason read somewhere before we went that to cross the street you “just walk.” Like step off the curb and walk across the street, with no regard for traffic nor waiting for a gap in the action. Just walk. They probably won’t hit you.

Lemme tell you what, man: that takes a lot of trust. I mean the Vietnamese are nice and all, but it’s only been 50 years since Americans were all up in their business and I’m not sure I want to be the one someone takes out their latent frustration with Americans on. After all, traveling with Jason, we stand out in Vietnam. They are not a tall people. Jason, clocking in at a shave over 6’3″ (thanks to his shoes), literally is head and shoulders above the crowd. So, at least I don’t have to worry about whether they’ll see him… just whether they’ll choose to avoid hitting him.

For the first several days we’d walk blocks out of our way just to find a stretch of road with a lull in traffic enough for us to initiate the “just walk” procedure. But, as you can imagine, that get’s old. So around day 4 we found ourselves standing on a curb with nothing but sunshine, blue skies, and a busy street standing between us and a museum we wanted to go to. I mentioned there are practically no stop lights, right? It’s all roundabouts. Busy, busy roundabouts where traffic never stops.

As Jason tried to find the right moment for us to step into traffic, I grew impatient; “Let’s just cross.” Three or four more minutes went by with still no lull in sight. “Look they said you just have to walk; if tourists died from this we’d hear about it in the news.” A few more minutes passed before he agreed to a compromise: let’s just go down a half block, distancing ourselves from the round-about a bit and hopefully it’ll feel less stupid to cross the street.

While wrapping up this agreement between ourselves and turning to leave, this little old lady walked up. Presumably she had seen us standing there like scared chickens trying not to become the butt of a joke as she approached from down the block because she walked right up to me, took my arm, caught my gaze and uttered a single English word at me: “Come.” So there I am being literally dragged into the street by a 70-something year old Vietnamese lady while my husband stands on the curb watching! “Baby!” I holler back as the gap between us widens… “this is your chance,” I say. She repeats her command of “come,” this time directed in his direction, and luckily he listened.

In a true episode of oppositeville we got helped across the street by a little old lady. I’m still waiting for my opportunity to karmically repay the gesture, but most septuagenarians don’t take well to being dragged into traffic by strangers. One day our time will come, and we’ll be ready. In the meantime we remain grateful for the experience and the street-crossing lesson. It didn’t remove the feeling that we were doing something insanely stupid, but it did teach us a lesson about community and respect.

In America, I think we can agree, stepping into traffic and trusting that cars will stop is a pipe dream best saved for movie scripts set in the 1950s. The New Yorker stereotype of people slapping hoods and shouting “Hey! I’m walkin’ here!” didn’t develop because vehicles yield the right-of-way willingly. But I think it goes beyond traffic etiquette. Overseas, in Asia specifically, we experience a culture with more sense of community. Community mothering, community respect, and community patience. People literally look out for each other, and expect—dare I say, demand—that people respect other people and property, public and private. It’s a far less litigious vibe. There aren’t signs and stanchions everywhere trying to stop you from doing something stupid. Trash doesn’t litter the streets, despite few punny reminders to use receptacles. People exercise personal responsibility and respect the fact they we’re all just trying to get somewhere—your quest is no less important than mine… so I’ll just drive around you.

It’s nice: visiting a society like Vietnam where people aren’t trying to run you off the road, where you can trust your proverbial neighbor to mind your space, where you can… just walk. Perhaps we could give it a try.