Honkey

A HUGE cultural difference we've noticed is the use of car horns. In the US, if you push me to the point of honking at you, it either means there is eminent danger or that you have enraged me to the point that there is murder flaming in my heart.  If someone honks at me, then I feel instant shame over some driving mistake or instant defensiveness wondering if a confrontation is likely.

When we went to India, people honked to indicate they were there and to be careful.  Not necessarily friendly but certainly normal and pragmatic...a sort of "beep beep--I'm here!"  Of course, horn honking comes in all varieties, too.  The short "wake up" beep to the long "WHAT ARE YOU DOING" drawn out one.  Every once in a while, when exiting a roundabout here, I beep-beep to let the gnarly traffic that I'm about to cross know that I'm coming through.

But even as I've come to understand this horny communication in more subtle ways, I still can't get used to the beeping of horns that happens the instant a light turns green. It seems to come and go with the cycles of the moon...when people are more tense, the "beep beep hurry up the light is green move NOW" happens more frequently.  I've been 20 cars back from the light, and when that little speck on the horizon turns green, the nutcase behind me beeps his horn.  Traffic here is such a major source of stress and frustration--especially aggravated by Westerners' insistence on the formation of orderly and courteous lines being totally at odds with the Middle Eastern insistence on "if there's a space, I can take it and lines are for losers" approach.  So I've decided to just think of those "the light is green now GO" honks as a celebration, like "yea! beep beep for greeeeeeeen!"  Sometimes I even beep for the hell of joining in.

Sidenote: A horrible thing we see here regarding horns is people of privilege (of varied nationalities) pulling up a juice stall or fast food place and blaring their horns so the unfortunate staff has to come running out curbside to take and then deliver their order.  That's a whole other ranting post, but my general philosophy is that if you can't get your rump out of the seat, then you can't have that Quarter Pounder with Cheese.