
Illustration: Peter C. Espina/GT
Shanghai native Liu Xiang, the famous 110-meter hurdler and Olympic gold medalist, is being dangerously imitated on China's streets. Rather than using crosswalks or overpasses designed for safe-crossings, many people traverse - mimicking perhaps the nation's most-prized athlete - striding over road barriers meant to separate pedestrians from oncoming traffic. Just recently, a young man in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province tumbled over a 1-meter-high barrier - his flip-flops were not equipped with enough of a spring it seems. Landing with his head upside down, he was embarrassingly knocked out cold. It was by sheer luck that he was rescued by a nearby policeman. In their latest attempt to prevent these all too familiar types of accidents from repeating, traffic officers have resorted to putting banners on the barriers that read, "Imitating Liu Xiang is not easy, 'hurdling' is risky."