Nothing, perhaps, is farther from reality than the informational video that plays at the train station in Chengdu. In the video, a smiling family is greeted personally at the train station. The grinning security officer helps them put their bags through an x-ray machine. A female attendent gently pats the young child on the shoulder. A deaf woman receives instructions in sign language and two eldery people are assisted to open, clean seating. As the train pulls away, another beautiful attendent waves serenly.
In reality, the station probably moves somewhere around 75,000 people a day (my best guess). 75,000 grumpy, pushy members of a swarming, heaving society. People cover every inch of that station, every nook has somebody sleeping in it. I have never dared to look in the bathroom. Chinese train stations are not bastions of civilizations, even as the signs on the wall exert us to be.
I find that I have become less patient here recently, perhaps even hypocritical in some ways. As Chinese people swarm around me, surging onto buses to grab the few places to sit, or rush onto trains, I get angry. I want to smash them all for being so freaking agressive and pushy (literally). And as I mumble about them all being uncivilized serfs, I use my superior bulk to block them out of the way or push them back.
Is it a good thing? No. But that's how I feel sometimes.
5 comments:
Teacher Brown, one day in the Shanghai metro I snapped, grabbed the little hand that was jammed in the small of my back, and threw it back at the lady who was pushing me. Then I called my friend and asked her how to say "bie pang wo!"
So I know how you feel.
ps. is the GFW down now?
Even an advanced paragon of civilized modernity like the Shanghai Maglev can become a terrible experience due to this kind of crowd behavior.
For some reason, the masses are always in a real hurry to get their bags through the security screening. You have about half a second to get your luggage on the belt before somebody else exploits the opening and skips in front of you. There is sort of a line but it falls apart when you get close to the belt.
So the other day I snapped at the young fellow who tried to insert his backpack between my briefcases and my heavy roller check-in bag. I turned to him very sternly and said acidly, "Ni keyi deng yihui ma?"
He made some kind of displeased noise and glowered but I had made my point.
Sorry to double post but Shanghai has a similar harmonious informational video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6-QTHzUbn0
Whenever I see it, I shake my head and wonder if anyone else gets the irony. It doesn't help that there is no clear term for "irony" in Chinese, does it?
Oh, the famous 文明 video... awesome. Amber and I did a show about that video here:
http://chinesepod.com/lessons/a-month-in-recovery-and-being-civilized
The interesting thing about that video is not just "help and you'll be helped," but notice it's always "help to the point of self-sacrifice, and you'll be rescued.
Personally, I think people are perfectly capable of keeping their own shopping cart under control while trapping a runaway shopping cart for an exasperated lady.
well the GFW is sort of temporarily down due to a nifty trick. I liked the ChinesePod--thank you!
Appreciate everyone's comments :)
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