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How to control plague of rude and dangerous queue-jumping at Expo
By Ni Tao |
February 3, 2010, Wednesday
|
Print Edition
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AS the clock ticks down to the opening on May 1 of the Shanghai World Expo, it's clear that the city has no time to waste in reducing some chronic maladies of bad manners.
Among those addressed in last week's annual session of the Municipal People's Congress is queue-jumping, and Mayor Han Zheng called on residents to refrain from this annoying practice and play gracious hosts.
Despite all the press the issue has got, the fact it competed for attention with serious official agendas is somewhat unsettling, especially when the Expo is only three months away.
For a city as developed as Shanghai, the problem of queue-jumping simply shouldn't have arisen in the legislative discussion at all - the precious time devoted to it could have been spent on more weighty topics.
That this widespread rudeness issue figured in the mayor's speech came as a rude awakening that while the city is rolling out spanking new and impressive "hardware" day in, day out for the upcoming Expo jamboree, its "software" is not yet as impressive.
One only needs to take the subway to see the magnitude of the queue-jumping problem. As a daily commuter on Metro Line 8, which is so crowded that carriages seem to burst at the seams during rush hour, I had become inured to the queue-jumping annoyance.
Throughout the subway, lighted panels warn riders against jumping the queue. The panels show a picture of commuters swarming to get into an overcrowded carriage. The caption: "I'm sure you are not one of them."
My indifference toward the queue-jumping problem turned into real alarm last week when I was caught in the middle of a dangerous avalanche of commuters. It was a scene from the Metro ad.
Toward 6pm on a rainy Wednesday, I was standing at the head of a queue waiting for a train at People's Square Station.
As I waited in line, I looked around at the ever-growing, meandering queue behind me. Some ladies dressed to the nines were chattering away in local dialect, totally oblivious to the fact that they were standing in the wrong area and would block the doorway once the train arrived.
As time passed, some commuters' patience obviously wore thin and they began to sigh and groan. When the train finally arrived and the doors opened, order was initially relatively good.
But after passengers continued to pour out of the carriage, the Metro loudspeakers urged people to hurry up and some pinheads behind me simply couldn't wait anymore.
They jostled their way in, without letting people out first. I was pushed out of the way at the front of what had been a queue.
Out of unexpected fury (caused in part by the dreadful weather, I guess) I snapped at one of the queue-jumpers closest to me, a bespectacled middle-aged man who exuded the air of an intellectual.
But being admonished by an "impudent" young man on how to behave in public was more than he could stand. We got into an altercation and only stopped as it deteriorated and other commuters stood back to enjoy the show, some to egg us on.
Later on I realized the man was not solely to blame for the unruly Metro rush. A lot of people were at fault, including the Metro operators.
In major transport hubs like People's Square where large passenger volume is expected, they could have increased the waiting time before the automatic doors close, thereby reducing the chaos and skirmishing to get in before the doors actually hiss shut.
In general, since I'm not an argumentative person, I congratulate myself on not getting too deeply sucked into the argument. If I had been pitted against some Shanghainese ladies, their tongue lashing would surely have flummoxed me into silence and made me wish I hadn't started the spat in the first place.
One important lesson, however, can be learned from this incident (which happens all the time), both by well-meaning people and authorities in charge of eradicating such bad behavior in the Expo.
Occasional good manners by some people will not work. Neither will moral teachings. As evident in the Metro case, a modest technical improvement such as allowing more time before doors close could make more passengers commit to the gentlemen's way. A nudge in the right direction goes a long way toward advancing the cause of promoting courtesy.
Among those addressed in last week's annual session of the Municipal People's Congress is queue-jumping, and Mayor Han Zheng called on residents to refrain from this annoying practice and play gracious hosts.
Despite all the press the issue has got, the fact it competed for attention with serious official agendas is somewhat unsettling, especially when the Expo is only three months away.
For a city as developed as Shanghai, the problem of queue-jumping simply shouldn't have arisen in the legislative discussion at all - the precious time devoted to it could have been spent on more weighty topics.
That this widespread rudeness issue figured in the mayor's speech came as a rude awakening that while the city is rolling out spanking new and impressive "hardware" day in, day out for the upcoming Expo jamboree, its "software" is not yet as impressive.
One only needs to take the subway to see the magnitude of the queue-jumping problem. As a daily commuter on Metro Line 8, which is so crowded that carriages seem to burst at the seams during rush hour, I had become inured to the queue-jumping annoyance.
Throughout the subway, lighted panels warn riders against jumping the queue. The panels show a picture of commuters swarming to get into an overcrowded carriage. The caption: "I'm sure you are not one of them."
My indifference toward the queue-jumping problem turned into real alarm last week when I was caught in the middle of a dangerous avalanche of commuters. It was a scene from the Metro ad.
Toward 6pm on a rainy Wednesday, I was standing at the head of a queue waiting for a train at People's Square Station.
As I waited in line, I looked around at the ever-growing, meandering queue behind me. Some ladies dressed to the nines were chattering away in local dialect, totally oblivious to the fact that they were standing in the wrong area and would block the doorway once the train arrived.
As time passed, some commuters' patience obviously wore thin and they began to sigh and groan. When the train finally arrived and the doors opened, order was initially relatively good.
But after passengers continued to pour out of the carriage, the Metro loudspeakers urged people to hurry up and some pinheads behind me simply couldn't wait anymore.
They jostled their way in, without letting people out first. I was pushed out of the way at the front of what had been a queue.
Out of unexpected fury (caused in part by the dreadful weather, I guess) I snapped at one of the queue-jumpers closest to me, a bespectacled middle-aged man who exuded the air of an intellectual.
But being admonished by an "impudent" young man on how to behave in public was more than he could stand. We got into an altercation and only stopped as it deteriorated and other commuters stood back to enjoy the show, some to egg us on.
Later on I realized the man was not solely to blame for the unruly Metro rush. A lot of people were at fault, including the Metro operators.
In major transport hubs like People's Square where large passenger volume is expected, they could have increased the waiting time before the automatic doors close, thereby reducing the chaos and skirmishing to get in before the doors actually hiss shut.
In general, since I'm not an argumentative person, I congratulate myself on not getting too deeply sucked into the argument. If I had been pitted against some Shanghainese ladies, their tongue lashing would surely have flummoxed me into silence and made me wish I hadn't started the spat in the first place.
One important lesson, however, can be learned from this incident (which happens all the time), both by well-meaning people and authorities in charge of eradicating such bad behavior in the Expo.
Occasional good manners by some people will not work. Neither will moral teachings. As evident in the Metro case, a modest technical improvement such as allowing more time before doors close could make more passengers commit to the gentlemen's way. A nudge in the right direction goes a long way toward advancing the cause of promoting courtesy.
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