Experiment no 1: Walking under the influence

I conducted an experiment today, and here's the result of my research:

Of ten people followed in the street, ZERO walked in a straight line, and TEN blocked my path in a last minute zig zag swerve as I tried to overtake them.

Now I don't know whether it is just people in Hong Kong who have this insanely annoying habit or whether it is because the pavements are so narrow here that I just notice it more, but walking anywhere in Hong Kong (especially during morning, lunch and evening rush hours) is INFURIATING!

At first it looks like everyone is walking on the right hand side, which would make sense and bring a semblance of pedestrian order, but then out of the blue and completely unpredictably, the person in front of you (usually armed with a cigarette ready to blind you and burn you) will vere off course or simply stop incomprehensibly in their tracks, creating a huge human domino-style pile-up behind them. Not to mention the people coming the other way who, on their crazed trajectory, create head-on collisions with no apology whatsoever. In fact, often someone will bash into me and then scowl at me as if it is my fault that I am in their way!

And when it's raining, well, the best thing to do then is never leave home, because hundreds of inconsiderate zig zaggers are one thing, but once they have their umbrella weapons in hand, now that's just a city-wide accident waiting to happen.

Especially when you're just tall enough for the umbrellas' spikes to be at eye-level...