Today is April 11, and in Beijing, that means it's "No Queue-Jumping Day." In February, the city launched a campaign to encourage Beijingers to be a little more civil in preparation for next summer's Olympic games, and deemed that the 11th day of each month would be a no line-jumping day. They even have a slogan: “It’s civilized to queue, it’s glorious to be polite.” One day out of 30... hmm... I would say that it might be effective... if people in this country even queued in the first place. The Chinese are the anthithesis of the British when it comes to queueing. Boarding a bus, subway train, or even an elevator is like reaching for the last Tickle-Me-Elmo in a toy store filled with hundreds of desperate parents - you gotta throw some elbows if you wanna get on.
Once a week, I a person wearing a red armband standing at the bus stop near campus, trying to get people to line up (just to line up, we're not yet at the queue-jumping stage). He'll wave a little red flag and try to corral the people waiting there into something that resembles a line. All goes well, until the bus arrives - poof! the line disappears and suddenly there's a mob of people pushing and shoving their way onto the bus. Talk about an exercise in futility.
I know I'm not supposed to make judgment calls when it comes to cross-cultural comparisons, but the lack of order here really frustrates me sometimes. People don't even line-up while they're waiting for the bathroom. I can't help but look at how things are done back home and lament the apparent inefficiency of this place. However, I've taken enough anthropology classes to know that there is always a reason for a certain behavior of a society, even if it's not immediately apparent. The every-man-for-himself mentality that I witness everyday here probably has its roots in the tulmultuous history of China itself. That's 5000 years of habit and tradition. I don't think one day a month will do much to change that.
In related news, the Chinese government has also started a "no-spitting" campaign. We'll see how well that one does.
1 comment:
Is the no-spitting campaign at all different from the one China's been trying to do for the last 15 years or so? It seems like they trot that pony out every so often whenever the think they need to impress the West somehow. Krajack and I actually had a talk on that last semester.
Post a Comment