Mozart's 8 1/2

© Joselito Briones

I guess it's not uncommon for any country to be dubious of visiting foreigners' ability to assimilate with local vehicular and pedestrian traffic.

In London, it makes sense that they have "Look Left" and "Look Right" signs on pedestrian crossings, as most foreigners visiting the city would probably come from a country with reversed vehicular traffic directions. The problem is, they put the directional sign on the street pavement, on the side of the street where a pedestrian would be crossing from, inches away from where one would be standing just before he crosses the street. Whoever looks in that direction before crossing? To look there would mean to bend your head so much as to disregard the actual direction and situation of the traffic (not what your instinct would tell you to do). The traffic direction written on the other side of the street is much more visible, that's what one sees before crossing the street. Only, that signage points to the opposite direction. And the letters are upside down from the viewpoint of the pedestrians who could see them, adding to the confusion. Obviously, it's a lot more expensive to put the directional signage where they should be, on a pole, where it would be clearly visible, and visible only from one side, from the other side of the street.

© Joselito Briones

In Germany, they went one step further. They've got a bigger problem in that there is a big probability that not many visiting foreigners understand the German language. So instead of words, they made graphic representations (photo, left). This one says: "This is a street where you can see an average German family. The man, distinguished as so by the fact that he doesn't have long hair and he's not wearing a dress nor a skirt, is playing football with the son, same gender indication as before, only this one's smaller. The wife, invisible from this illustration, is home, in that two-story house, cooking. This family has a car, and it's not one of those enormous gas-guzzling american cars, either. It's parked right on the street because they use their garage for something else. The hockey stick is for the mother's use, to whack some sense into the father and the son if they become too crazy about football."

When I took this photo, there were several tourists standing in front of the sign, looking at it, while someone, presumably the tour guide, was speaking loudly to everyone in a language I didn't recognize. I could imagine her explaining the signage to the group, "This is the place where a man and his son, bonding and playing football, got run over by a car. At first, the authorities thought it was an accident, but after investigation, they found out that the driver of the car is also the resident of the house they were playing in front of. He got annoyed because of all the noise they're making and decided to run them over. The driver's wife watched the carnage from the window of the house."


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P.S.
The German team lost their bid for the World Championship last night, when they lost the match to Italy. I thought they really did a good job though, and I for one will probably be watching more football from now on.


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