In the Western world, to ring a bell or sound a horn is usually an aggressive thing to do. It carries a warning or an instruction: “Get out of the way,” “Get a move on,” or “What the hell kind of idiot are you, anyway?” If you hear a lot of horns blowing on a New York street, you know that people are in a dangerous mood. In China, you gradually realise, the sound means something else entirely. It doesn’t mean, “Get out of my way, asshole,” it just means a cheerful “Here I am.” Or rather it means, “Here I am here I am here I am here I am here I am …,” because it is continuous.
I do wish cars had two kinds of horns for exactly this purpose.
