Over the past years, there has been an increasing number of explicit regulations and rules everywhere you go in the US. In order to avoid lawsuits and other legal problems, people are forced to put in place several regulations that can cover the spectrum of legal issues that might arrive as an erroneous (yet plausible) use of a particular service that they are offering.

For example when you go to an amusement park nowadays and you find your way to the bumper cars, you find that there are so many rules for the ride. “Go in circles”, “frontal collisions prohibited”, etc. Where’s the fun?! You have just ruined what used to be a great ride.

But in China, where regulations are not as strict and everything is much more laidback, this is not a problem.

We went to a little boardwalk carnival in Dalian, and we got the chance to play with some Chinese bumper cars. Around 10 minutes of “do whatever you want and just enjoy yourself” for 10RMB (~U$1.25). We just went crashing and bouncing all over the place. Some of the hits were pretty hard, and you felt the impact shaking your whole body. Yet, they are still bumper cars, and were created for this exact purpose.

Picture Credit: Alejandro Cuevas

That being said, the overall park had some pretty neat rides. It was quite an amusement park for a boardwalk, and the fees as mentioned before were extremely low compared to the US.

Apart from having a great time at the amusement park and trying cool rides I had a very big realization while I was there. It might sound silly, but before coming to China I never thought about Chinese people going to amusement parks or having fun rides like those. As I watched parents riding around with their children, groups of friends meeting up or go-karts, etc., I realized that as in any other part of the world everybody was simply trying to have a good time and enjoy their time with family and friends. They, as anybody else, have a similar pursuit of happiness–and the ability to do so.

Picture Credit: Alejandro Cuevas