To what shall I compare thee, beautiful laowai?
You are a foreigner of foreigners, and I wish I was like you,
With your big hair and passive-aggressive smile.
But lo, if I stopped a car like that I would be run over.
We applaude you laowai. Thank you.

A Foreign Lady in Beijing

The top story at Nanfang Daily today was titled "Foreign Auntie Challenges Rule-Breaking Vehicle." The story was originally posted by blogger known as Lao An (老安, Old An). The original blog post was titled "A foreigner helps the Chinese to improve their civic quality."

Here is the translation of the text:

At around 8:50am on October 20, 2006, on the road from the Zhaoyang East bridge towards the Blue Island Building, a funny episode occurred: a foreigner acted as traffic police and made a small sedan which had gone into the bicycle lane move back out into the car lane.

By the time that I got there, a foreigner had stopped and held her bicycle in the bicycle lane in front of a silver car (license plate number HL ****). She was smiling and saying something to the driver while making gestures. At first I went past and I did not take any photographs. Then I saw the foreigner go past the car and stopped her bicycle in front of the car. So she was trying to get the car to go back into the car lane instead of being in the bicycle lane. This went on for a few minutes. The driver got mad and got out of the car to curse the foreigner. He even picked up the bicycle and hook it. Even so, the foreigner would not budge and she insisted that the car get back on the car lane.

Finally, the car turned back into the car lane. The foreigner then blocked the next car (a white Santana), which quickly retreated and went into the car lane.

The whole incident occurred in under 10 minutes and drew quite a few spectators. After the foreigner left, the spectators commented: "The Chinese really need to be educated this way!" Dear brother and sister readers, what do you think?

The foreigner catches up to the car and stops in front of it.

She holds her ground and maintains a smile.

She will not budge

The driver gets out and pushes the bicycle.

But the foreigner holds her ground.

The driver gets out again and demands: "Are you leaving or not?"

The driver picks up the bicycle and threw it on the side.
He said: "If you block me again, I'll throw it even farther away!"

"Go home and mind your own business!"

But she does not leave.

"If you block me again, I won't be polite anymore!"
(but he drives into the car lane all the same)

The foreigner now blocks a white Santana that entered the bicycle lane. This car quickly backed up and retreated into the car lane.

(This article was borrowed from http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20061027_1.htm)