Entertainment> Hot Pot Column

If you wanna beep me, I won't say no

(China Daily)
2011-03-07 16:40

If there's one thing I love about Beijing's traffic it is the propensity of drivers to blow their horns at the slightest provocation.

A pedestrian can put one foot on the road, spend three seconds jumping into a cab or merely be wearing a loud shirt and a quiet haircut and he or she will be met with a cavalcade of tooting and beeping.

None of those shrill little parps and honks you get in Paris or Rome, but a proper, orchestral dissonance of blaring. It sets my heart racing with pleasure.

Forget the moody raucousness of Rachmanikov, or the sweet strains of a Viennese waltz. Bring on the Beijing cab driver ensemble at full volume. Give it free rein, or should that be ad libitum, bellicoso, con brillo, fortississimo and libero? What I like is a strong, sustained cacophony to blow the cobwebs out of my brain and make me feel alive.

Some people prefer freeform jazz. Wimps. You'll never catch me asking drivers sarcastically what else they got for Christmas when they are auditioning for auto audio recognition.

It's music to my ears when I see a four-by-four break down in a bicycle lane, thereby holding up a line of irate taxi drivers unable to do anything but blast away on their horns in a frenzy of impotent rage. Their clearly visible passion adds a sort of force majeure to the performance. And the great thing is, it requires absolutely no skill whatsoever. Give me garage music any day: the garage of Beijing streets.

That doesn't mean to say there is no individuality in playing the motorized music box under the bonnet. There are those who like nothing more than the sustained barrage that sets listeners' lungs into a thrilling vibrato, literally tickling the ribs.

Others are more attuned to the short but piercingly poetic toot. The tantalizing thing about this latter is that it is not always immediately clear as to what it is aimed at. All heads turn in unison to spot whether a cyclist has wobbled, a paper bag has blown on to the highway or a film star has been spotted strolling down the road dressed only in underpants. It could be any of these or, most intriguingly, all three at the same time. Whatever, it's the toot that always gets a hoot from me.

Thinking about this the other day, as I inspired an impromptu car concerto of my own by looking as if I might, just might, decide to step in front of speeding Nissans on a packed four-lane highway, I decided there was scope to bring this music of the masses to even more ears.

We need not only satisfy ourselves with the lust for noise while walking the streets. There is no need to pray for the rider of that silent electric bicycle and trailer carrying every single plastic bottle recovered from Beijing's waste bins that month to warn you of his presence with a shrill peep. We, as perambulators, should each be equipped with our own, personalized horns.

That way, instead of carefully negotiating the crowded pavements, we could press on in full haste, simply squeezing a handheld device to emit an ear-splitting exclamation of imminent collision in the hope the crashee has the wits to get out of the way of the potential crasher.

It would be great for barging into queues at the till of a shop or on the approach to escalators, fantastic for ensuring a seat on a bus and just brilliant to see the faces of drivers turning right (and bright) at red lights against a full flow of pedestrians.

Just as fish dream of a land with more water, I dream of a city with more noise, a chaotic chorus, a crescendo con extra anima, a vivace virtuoso of vocal vehicular violence. Vicariously, of course.

Encore!