Non fiction

You’re not allowed to play with trumpets

In China there is no Facebook, few civil rights, and signs in the street banning trumpets. It quickly became a source of comedy, a joke to everyone visiting. China, the country known for its ancient and flamboyant history, jaw-dropping architecture and spectacular fireworks, was a nation which banned trumpet players in the streets.

Only upon waking to the noise of construction work accompanied by the sounds of the horns did I realise. The signs of trumpet depicted horns. In a modern city like Nanjing, forbidding the horn suggested a more civilized manner of driving, with the use of mirrors, maybe even the indicator. Even our taxi driver from the airport, despite driving in the middle of the motorway across lanes used his indicators from time to time, when he wasn’t too busy texting or lighting his cigarette.

As the months rolled by, I noticed that the sign might as well be for trumpets, for it didn’t make the slightest difference to the number of horns plaguing the streets of Nanjing. If it had actually been for trumpets at least then I may have had an incentive to pick up a new brass instrument to push the limits of foreigner leeway.

Rebecca Solomon