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Expo manners: Let others go first, don't jump queues
By Wang Yong |
February 1, 2010, Monday
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Print Edition
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HOW long are you willing to stand in line before your patience runs out?
Half an hour was the surprising answer from a member of the Shanghai Municipal People's Congress to the question Shanghai Mayor Han Zheng asked last week during the annual session of the congress.
Mayor Han was thinking of the importance of keeping orderly lines of visitors during the 184-day 2010 Shanghai World Expo that starts on May 1 and is expected to attract 70 million visitors. Han was somewhat taken aback because he knew visitors often had to wait patiently for as long as four hours during the 2005 World Expo in Aichi in Japan.
If a well-educated legislator is inclined to jump queue after standing 30 minutes, what about others? This is not to say that a city legislator must always behave better than ordinary people, but he or she is definitely not alone in finding it difficult to stand in a line for more than 30 minutes. We know this from looking at irregular lines, rampant queue-jumping and jaywalking throughout the city.
No wonder Mayor Han regards forming an orderly line no small issue for the Expo.
Playing a good host for the event requires more than erecting fancy buildings in Shanghai, it requires Shanghai people to show good manners in public. You can't have a better city and better life if people are not gracious to each other, however fancy apartments or cars they may have.
Mayor Han makes two other requests of residents during the Expo:
- Don't crowd in to the China Pavilion and the major theme pavilions. Let foreign visitors and people from outside Shanghai visit first. Residents can visit during the pre-Expo trial operation and during the open period after the six-month event closes.
- Act as volunteer helpers throughout the city throughout the Expo. There are plenty of volunteers on the site. Welcome visitors to your own neighborhood.
Francis Bacon says in his essay "Of Goodness, and Goodness of Nature": "If a man be gracious, and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world; and that his heart is no island, cut off from other lands; but a continent, that joins to them."
Shanghai is one of the richest regions in China in terms of material wealth, and I believe its people are among China's most gracious and courteous to strangers. Admittedly, there's room for improvement.
In fact, we don't need to borrow Bacon's words about being good citizens. Confucius taught us to respect not only our own parents, but others' parents as well, and to pamper not just our own kids, but others' kids as well.
Confucian teachings such as these run in the blood of every Chinese, but they are too often forgotten in an era when many believe that money is glorious. Politeness to strangers has taken a back seat to suspicion and sometimes disdain in many parts of the country that are so desperately seeking to get rich and get ahead.
Now it's time to rethink our manners and the meanings of a better city and better life, the theme of the Expo. Think of the person standing in front of you in the line as your fellow, and you may think twice before elbowing in front of him or her and jumping queue.
Standing patiently in line, letting visitors enter major pavilions first and acting as volunteers throughout the city will demonstrate Shanghai's essential courtesy and graciousness to strangers from around the world.
Half an hour was the surprising answer from a member of the Shanghai Municipal People's Congress to the question Shanghai Mayor Han Zheng asked last week during the annual session of the congress.
Mayor Han was thinking of the importance of keeping orderly lines of visitors during the 184-day 2010 Shanghai World Expo that starts on May 1 and is expected to attract 70 million visitors. Han was somewhat taken aback because he knew visitors often had to wait patiently for as long as four hours during the 2005 World Expo in Aichi in Japan.
If a well-educated legislator is inclined to jump queue after standing 30 minutes, what about others? This is not to say that a city legislator must always behave better than ordinary people, but he or she is definitely not alone in finding it difficult to stand in a line for more than 30 minutes. We know this from looking at irregular lines, rampant queue-jumping and jaywalking throughout the city.
No wonder Mayor Han regards forming an orderly line no small issue for the Expo.
Playing a good host for the event requires more than erecting fancy buildings in Shanghai, it requires Shanghai people to show good manners in public. You can't have a better city and better life if people are not gracious to each other, however fancy apartments or cars they may have.
Mayor Han makes two other requests of residents during the Expo:
- Don't crowd in to the China Pavilion and the major theme pavilions. Let foreign visitors and people from outside Shanghai visit first. Residents can visit during the pre-Expo trial operation and during the open period after the six-month event closes.
- Act as volunteer helpers throughout the city throughout the Expo. There are plenty of volunteers on the site. Welcome visitors to your own neighborhood.
Francis Bacon says in his essay "Of Goodness, and Goodness of Nature": "If a man be gracious, and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world; and that his heart is no island, cut off from other lands; but a continent, that joins to them."
Shanghai is one of the richest regions in China in terms of material wealth, and I believe its people are among China's most gracious and courteous to strangers. Admittedly, there's room for improvement.
In fact, we don't need to borrow Bacon's words about being good citizens. Confucius taught us to respect not only our own parents, but others' parents as well, and to pamper not just our own kids, but others' kids as well.
Confucian teachings such as these run in the blood of every Chinese, but they are too often forgotten in an era when many believe that money is glorious. Politeness to strangers has taken a back seat to suspicion and sometimes disdain in many parts of the country that are so desperately seeking to get rich and get ahead.
Now it's time to rethink our manners and the meanings of a better city and better life, the theme of the Expo. Think of the person standing in front of you in the line as your fellow, and you may think twice before elbowing in front of him or her and jumping queue.
Standing patiently in line, letting visitors enter major pavilions first and acting as volunteers throughout the city will demonstrate Shanghai's essential courtesy and graciousness to strangers from around the world.
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