04.22.07
East meets West…not in Fuzhou
So the other day I am supposed to meet a Chinese friend at Dong Jie Kou, the mega-intersection which forms Fuzhou’s main shopping district. It’s also the geographic center of the city. I arrive 5 minutes before the scheduled meeting time. A few minutes later my phone rings.
“Ben, I am here. Where are you?”
“I am in front of the KFC on the southwest corner of Dong Jie Kou.” (I have to specify “southwest corner” because there is another KFC on the northeast corner as well).
“What do you mean?”
“The southwest corner of Dong Jie Kou.”
“I do not know which corner is the southwest corner.”
Now we have to begin looking for other geographic markers. This is not always so simple in Chinese mega intersections such as Dong Jie Kou. There are KFCs on two of the corners, McDonalds’s on two of the corners, and major shopping malls on three of the corners. By my thinking, using cardinal directions would be the most logical way to ascertain an exact location. Not in Fuzhou.
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Dong Jie Kou, Fuzhou’s thriving mega-intersection, and logical point from which to determine direction.
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“Where do you live?”
“The northern part of the city.”
“Where’s that?”
“Where is the police station?”
“It faces the west side of the park.”
“Which side is West?”
“I’m trying to find your house. I’m in a cab driving up and down Wu Yi Lu. Should I turn east or west?”
“I don’t know.”
Regardless of the fact that most of the city’s major thoroughfares run either north to south or east to west in a neatly organized grid, virtually nobody, with the exception of cab drivers, knows cardinal directions. Instead, directions are given in relation to a well-known location.
“It’s across from the post office.”
“It’s next to the McDonald’s”
“It’s behind the whore house.”
The problem is that when you are you are in an unfamiliar area, or one where all the architecture is identical, this method does not work. I am not sure if this is just a Fuzhou thing, or a Chinese thing. A Chinese friend once told me “Northerners use north, south, east, and west, but Southerners only know right and left.” The only northern city I have spent a significant amount of time in Beijing, and I noticed that Beijingers, do in fact know cardinal directions.
“Where do you live?”
“I live just south of the north part of the 3rd ring road”
“Where is Hou Hai?”
“It’s northwest of the Forbidden City.”
“How to I get to the Qianmen area?”
“Go to Tiananmen Square, and walk directly south.”
However, I have not spent enough time living in other Chinese cities to confirm whether or not this statement about North vs. South holds any water.
To me, cardinal directions make perfect sense for a city like Fuzhou. Dong Jie Kou is the geographic center of Fuzhou, its main shopping district, and the center of the traffic grid. Using the North Bus Station and South Bus Station as compass points it is not difficult to figure out which way is North and which way is South. If you know the names of major streets (which most locals do), all you have to do is stare at a map for about 15 minutes, and you can figure it all out. Why this method has not caught on with the locals is beyond me.
chriswaugh_bj
said,
April 22, 2007 at 11:57 am
Yep, up here in the frozen, dusty north we use cardinal directions. Makes perfect sense, though, doesn’t it? Beijing is also mostly laid out in a grid pattern with most streets running either north-south or east-west. But I do have to take exception with one thing:
““How to I get to the Qianmen area?”
“Go to Tiananmen Square, and walk directly south.””
No. Take the subway direct to Qianmen. Many buses also go direct to Qianmen.
Sorry, I’m being pedantic again.
t
said,
April 22, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Amigo,
Zhende!!!!!! How has the logic of directions escaped an entire populous south of Shanghai? I haven’t a clue as to why this is such a convoluted idea. I live in a rabbit warren and I inevitably have to walk down to shi da because the idea of guiding someone here is absurd and I know that none of my chinese friends can grasp the idea that is sosososososo simple; north,. south, east, west. Go East at the milk store (see I am incorporating the logic) and then at the little store front go west. What?// I am sooooo confused.
Danielle
said,
April 22, 2007 at 11:47 pm
Eh, i used to consider it as a difference between women and men. Most women can’t take directions while most men can…
Josh
said,
April 23, 2007 at 1:08 pm
In Jinzhou (in the northeast), Jie run north/south and Lu run east/west. Qingdao (also north) doesn’t have a plan like that.
Benjamin Ross
said,
April 23, 2007 at 1:32 pm
Josh-
That sounds like a really nice, organized, street plan. I’ve found the confusing thing about Fuzhou (and most Chinese cities for that matter) is that streets change names. So in Fuzhou, you can be driving on Yang Qiao Lu, and suddenly your are on Dong Jie. In my home town of Kansas City, all the streets running east and west are numbered, so you always know exactly how far north and south you are. Then you just memorize the order of the main streets going north and south, and you can always know your location, even if you’ve never been there before.
Allie
said,
April 26, 2007 at 6:28 am
Please since being in Kansas from New York I noticed people cannot give me correct directions to places, they say it next to McDonalds on so and so street. Then there are 3 MCD’s on that street! LOL Topeka Kansas is the same as KC because its a midwestern map planner LOL
Allie
Liang
said,
April 29, 2007 at 8:51 pm
I tend to agree with Danielle, women and men are different in terms of directions.
By the way, if you are new in a place, and you can not see the sun (either due to clouds, or in the night), NEWS do not help you at all.
Ken Erickson
said,
April 30, 2007 at 1:32 pm
Try asking someone in Boston for directions in cardinal (NSEW) terms. You’ll get a blank stare. East coast cities are not (generally) planned cities–they follow old cow-paths and rivers and coastlines and people who live there can’t see the sun for the trees, most of the time.
Which reminds me: the outskirts of Beijing and most of Northern China always feels like the western United States to me. Open country, not so many trees, and towns laid out mostly on a grid. But better food and cheaper beer, of course.
ray
said,
May 6, 2007 at 12:47 pm
i don’t know china. however in japan, the historical concept of location is deliberately opaque. if you don’t know where you are, you probably don’t belong there.
Jeremy
said,
May 8, 2007 at 10:32 pm
well, thats probably true, man. but there are always exceptions, such as me. i know the directions very well. my home is in the northeast part of the city,near the mt golden rooster. my company is in the midwest part of town,near the westlake…bla bla bla i think people who dont use directions here r mostly from outta town.
ps females tend not to be good at pointing directions.
Heilong
said,
May 27, 2007 at 3:32 am
Strange I didnt know westerners are so in to north east west south, I dont know any of these usually unless its really important to know, I always say its next to such and such, always figured NEWS was a chinese thing. After reading the comment about Boston im thinking maybe its an Irish thing.