Traffic calming

You're going to love this one.

Tonight is the opening ceremony of the 24th Winter Universiade or student winter games (sort of like a mini winter Olympics for, obviously, students) which is being held in Harbin. China is keen to make a success of this in the hope that it will help them win the bid for the proper Winter Olympics in 2014. (They bid for 2010 and I think maybe 2002 as well but lost out.)

I'm quite excited about this as I love winter sports. Watching them, that is - daring to walk along an icy pavement is about as close as I'll ever come to actually doing any winter sports. I have no idea why I suddenly developed this interest, which began in January 1992 when I was an unemployed new graduate with nothing better to do than watch the Winter Olympics on TV. Prior to that my sport-watching had been pretty much confined to Wimbledon and occasionally as a child bonding with my Dad over cricket or snooker or some such thing. Oh and the infamous Seb Coe- and Imran Khan-fancying phases of 1983-4, but the least said about those, the better! Gimme a break, I was 15.

So anyway, I was hoping to go and see a few things, but a lot of it is actually happening at the ski resort a long way from Harbin, plus we have to go the Shanghai again next week so will miss most of it. Sadly my favourite event, the luge (the thing where someone slides head-first round a bobsleigh track very very fast on what looks like a tea-tray - utterly insane) doesn't seem to be included. So I might go and see some skating, which is possibly the least interesting but involves the least effort on my part.

Both the skating and the opening ceremony are taking place at the conference centre which happens to be about 10 minutes walk from our flat. Right next to the supermarket where we do our shopping, in fact. And like I said, the opening shenanigans is tonight. The authorities, no doubt rightly, anticipate a greatly increased volume of traffic on the roads.

Now stop a minute to think what would happen in the UK in this instance. They'd close a few roads for a few hours, wouldn't they? Inconvenient, possibly, but equally so for everyone, and largely avoidable if you know when and where not to go.

Here's what they've decided to do here.

Today, cars are only allowed onto the streets of Harbin if their registration ends in an even number. (Mr Li's ends in an odd number, hence he's unable to pick Peter up from the airport tonight.)

Can you imagine how that would go down in Edinburgh?

I'm weeping with mirth just thinking about it.