Have you ever experienced being squeezed into a train (without the need to ever move yourself) by a swarm of people anxiously wanting to get themselves inside? Have you been not able to get inside a train because of the same reason? Jumping queues and being rude are an universal problem, but this issue in Mainland China and Hong Kong are incredibly fascinating and sad.
How Do Hong Kongers and Mainland Chinese Jump Queues?
Generally speaking, jumping queues in subways is not very serious in Hong Kong while it’s the opposite in Mainland China. If you go to, let’s say, Beijing or Shanghai, I bet you would see that the usually-not-so-efficient Chinese people can get themselves into a train in light speed. They would push other people around in order to create space for themselves to board the train, then all the empty seats would be occupied in 2 seconds. In China, People from all walks of life would jump queues, from commuters, housewives to little kids. If you don’t fight and push others as well, you would not be able to get into the train and left behind on the platform, feeling angry and unloved.
Hong Kongers don’t usually jump the queues, but there are still some. Weirdly, Hong Kong people don’t push others. They do it in a more sophisticated, un-noticed yet lazy way. They simply walk to the front of a queue silently, or board the train by using the path that is for passengers coming out from the train. Those rude Hong Kongers are mainly women carrying a child or creepy middle-aged men carrying a newspaper (that they can read all day, anywhere). More sadly, even though the issue is not too serious in Hong Kong, it’s now getting worse because of the increasing amount of Mainland Chinese travelers in Hong Kong.
Hasty moments of squeezing yourself into a Hong Kong subway
And Their Response to Such Behavior?
For Chinese people, they simply fight back. Fighting back is a way to show their being strong and being able to protect their family (e.g. jumping the queue to get a seat for their children). Otherwise they would appear weak not just to people they don’t know but also to their children. Chinese people want to fight for the best welfare for themselves and their family and also show their power to their children so that the kids can learn, adopt and sustain this sense of power for the glory of their clan.
For Hong Kongese, they just suffer and stay silent. Extreme individualism may be the reason. To Hong Kong people, cutting queues is a bad manner, but speaking up and criticizing people’s bad manner is also a bad manner itself. What’s more, they think that fighting back might provoke further argument, plus this is “other people’s matters, not my business”. Hence they wouldn’t waste time on dealing with things not concerned them. As long as Hong Kongers can get the train ride and arrive at the destination they want, they wouldn’t say a word to people’s rude manners.
When Would They Stop Fighting for Seats?
People keep jumping queues in China while Hong Kongers don’t speak up to stop this rude manner. Ridiculous as it seems, there are still some moments where people would stop fighting seats and giving the seat away.
In China, it’s a well-known norm that no matter how much you want the seat after cutting the queues, you still need to give your seat to elderly people, pregnant women and the handicapped, especially the first category. Respecting the elderly is one of the core values in the traditional Chinese culture.
As for Hong Kong, people would generally still give their seat to elderly people, but they are relatively less willing to do it. Hong Kongers would only do it if there are public tensions that force them to (e.g. people around staring at them because they look like a cold-hearted person who doesn’t give seats to elderly). It’s always the public expectation and peer pressure that move Hong Kong people to take some certain action. Hong Kongers do things because the society tells them to, they don’t do things also because the society tells them not to.
The Future of Better Mannerisms
There is no future. There is only improvement or deterioration. The issue of jumping queues is not very serious in Hong Kong compared with Mainland China. After all, Hong Kong is a more civilized city. But the fact that Hong Kongers suffer and stay silent means there is a long way to eliminate this hideous culture.
The same issue is very prevalent in China where everyone does it day and night. Mainland Chinese are getting so used to it that there are also little rooms for improvement. Plus more and more Mainlanders are traveling to Hong Kong and spreading this rude manner around.
In either situation, the jumping queues issue can only be worse.
If Hong Kong people speak up and criticize rude people (either Hong Kong locals or Mainland travelers), there might be less jumping queues. Then if the Mainland travelers in Hong Kong learned it, adopted it and taught it to their children back home, this issue might be improved in China (considering Hong Kong culture is often widely spread in all over China). But in the end, who knows?
I would like to see what will happen in 10 years.
*Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/tamjty
Categories: Culture
Tags: Bad Manners, Being Rude
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Yeah! First comment. In my honest opinion, Hong Kong is still relatively well in terms of this cutting queue in MTR. It’s not that apparent during my few visits there. Then again, as mentioned by you, this would only deteriorate as time goes by.
What I can say is, the way to handle this situation is to leave it to the law enforcers. The yellow-shirt-people (sorry for naming them that way, because I don’t really know who they are) could always warn them of their misconduct.
I would always advise against speaking up against these people because there is this saying, “Don’t fight with an idiot, they will just make you fight like an idiot and then beat you in their own game.” After all, who is better at fighting as an idiot than the idiot themselves? Haha.
Hope there isn’t any hard feelings caused. I actually feel the same way too when my queue is being cut during public transport (but do not have the guts to stand up and speak out).
“Never argue with an idiot, they drag you down to their level and beat you with experience”
Sorry. This should be the correct quote instead.
True. Cutting queues is not really that common in Hong Kong. I’m just worried that it might get worse because of the influx of Mainland Chinese travelers.
The yellow-shirt-people are the staff of the MTR (the metro in Hong Kong) to take care of the flow of people during peak hours. I don’t think those staff would speak up if people jump the queues. They just simply direct people and spread the flow of people evenly onto each platform to avoid having a too-packed train compartment. Also, these yellow-shirt staff are mostly low-educated (relatively speaking) young people… this adds extra reason to why they wouldn’t speak up.
Hong Kong people don’t like arguing with idiots, because they’re afraid that they would turn into one. It’s not a matter of actually speaking up or not. It’s no point to speak up in a packed compartment anyway. The point is whether Hong Kong people have the gut to speak up. At this moment so far, they don’t.
In that case, I think the best way to instill this behavior is by setting up a good example? Seeing one speak up to this misbehavior encourages others to follow suit. I hope. While those cutting queues are still part of the minority, there is still hope that this could be remedied. When things have gotten out of hand and these becomes part of mindset and attitude of the majority, then it will be very difficult to handle as it is now part of the “culture”. Example of this would be the Mainland as you have pointed out in your post.
Still, who knows if your post here would inspire Hong Kong citizens to gather the courage and speak up? Keep up the good work.
Best regards to you.
Actually, the yellow-shirt-staff are doing a low-paid job. But they have great mission
So what you mean is that we need at least one person to speak up. Yes, but then that doesn’t mean that others will speak up until other people are also become open-minded to accept the new norm.
I just feel like Hong Kong people need to be more confident. Being confident is not just a one-man game, it has a lot to do with their growing up, their family, their education, people around them and the government directives. If anything is to blame, I would blame the whole system of the society. But if it isn’t because of the current system, I would have many exciting cultural stuff to talk about it.
Thanks TC for your continuous support.
This is an interesting topic and I also wrote about this recently on my blog. One time I told a young man jumping the queue “Don’t you know how to queue?” he just looked at me and said nothing, still queueing in the wrong line.
Thanks Sara. I couldn’t find your post about the train though… But I like the post about the banks in China a lot.
I think that men was just oblivious. Maybe he was meditating
Sorry to say to Mainland Chinese, but that’s what most Mainland Chinese have to improve. However, it seems like the problem, cutting the queue, is different significantly depends on province in Mainland China, (I’ve heard it is much worse in Northern China). Hopefully, the cities in Guangdong province like Shenzhen and Guangzhou has been educating about queuing on public area to citizens. I individually think public manner will be improved after decades throughout Mainland China if the education continues, like South Korea took decades to improve it.
It’s true that some cities like ShenZhen and Guangdong are more educated, partly because there are a lot of Hong Kongers going there for a short trip during weekends, and also it’s because there are a lot of foreigners living there to set up business.
In fact, the problem is cutting queues was getting better during the Beijing Olympics 2008. Chinese government has more incentives to educate citizen about public manners when there are big events coming. Just like ShenZhen’s hosting of the Universiade 2011 also helped a lot in educating people to maintain public manners. In the end, it’s always about pragmatism that urges the Chinese government to improve the citizen’s mannerisms.
Heh, good post. In the two years I’ve been in this area, I’ve already seen some changes in the Shenzhen metro behavior. People stand in line more, push less and are a bit more polite to each other and especially elderly. Still, it’s not HK. Yet, things in HK are not nearly as polite and orderly as in Taiwan or Japan. There, manners include keeping quiet, not talking to each other and not shouting into your mobile or staring at people.
Another issue I’ve heard about from females is the sense of personal space, especially during rush hour. In Hong Kong, even when the train is packed most people will do what they can not to touch one another, while in most places I’ve been to in mainland it’s very close body contact. Personally, I can bare it, but females I know tend to feel sexually harassed, and at times I think they have a good reason to… with people perhaps taking advantage of the situation.
Keep’em coming…
Fili
Thanks Fili!
I think that the improvements in Chinese cities especially those big ones like Shenzhen and Guangzhou are due to the government’s better civil education to prepare for big events. (e.g. Shenzhen’s Universiade 2011). Of course, as more businesses are developed there, people are developing higher global vision hence higher sense of public mannerisms.
But even if there are a lot of Mainland Chinese jumping queues, they still give their seat to elderly. They cannot afford not to give it, because it’s morally not acceptable in the Chinese society.
For the female space issue, yes. I feel like every one in Hong Kong is an extreme individualist and they are scared of being touched or deprived by others. Hong Kong people try to avoid direct conversations and body contact with people they don’t know otherwise people around would consider them weird. Hong Kong people care about appearance, a lot.
Interesting, though Hong Kong people don’t usually talk to strangers. It is very common for strangers to remind people whose handbag or purse is unzipped to take care of their property. Helping people to taking care of their property seems to be the only way people would talk to strangers. It’s always about money and status in Hong Kong. Isn’t it sad?
Give seat to elderly? I think not… noticed this problem a couple of times in mainland. If you want an example check this out – http://club.kdnet.net/dispbbs.asp?boardid=33&id=1262878&page=1
“morally acceptable” doesn’t come to play much, as far as I can tell. you could also see this in HK sometimes during public holidays when lots of mainland Chinese visit. The elderly push their way inside to try and make sure they have a seat, though they’re not aware they probably don’t need to in HK. In some places in mainland, getting a seat is a fight no matter who you are.
No one has ever started a conversation with me on the subway in HK, ever. Come to think of it, not only the subway… strangers generally do not not attempt to engage me in a conversation unless they have no other choice.
i wondered about that for a while, but after all this time I just got used to it, I guess.
In Taipei, it usually takes a few moments of looking at a map for someone to come and ask “everything okay? … need help? … you want me to take you there? … you want to come have dinner with us?”
The post about an elderly woman not getting seat is very sad…
You’re right, Mainlanders get used to fighting for seats. They just fight for seats without even thinking, even though they don’t have the need to.
In Hong Kong, people don’t usually talk to strangers. I guess it’s the same in Taiwan too. Hong Kong people only talk to strangers when they can provide value to the strangers or can help them. People wouldn’t just initiate a conversation with others randomly for leisure.
But magically, when it comes to helping others, Hong Kong people can be extremely nice and helpful. I guess it’s because everyone wants to be recognized by others here.
It is interesting to note the differences between the Hong Kongers/Hong Kongese (whichever term seems better) approach and handle riding the subway differently than those Chinese individuals found on the mainland. They seem to behave like Koreans do in a way, people just walk on and don’t really seem to push that much.
Yes.. Hong Kong people like doing things in an un-noticed way – to minimize the attention as the best they can. I didn’t know that Korean were also like that. Thanks for sharing.
No prob. It seems similar to me that both of them do it that way, interacting with them like that. I think its a bit better to approach it that way where people can get on and off without having to really push or anything.
I just think that both jumping to the front of the line and pushing people are bad. But at least, if they choose to cut the lines un-noticeably but not pushing others, others won’t get hurt.
I think the issue in China is that people realize that in order to succeed in China, you have to flaunt the law rather than follow it. This then carries over to everyday live where even basic thing like standing in a line and other simple civil behavior is ignored (think of how many times you’ve seen parents telling kids to pee right on the street, men spitting inside a restaurant, and people who will argue all day even though they are clearly wrong).
I’ve heard people say it’s cultural, but here in Taipei, we for the most part, share a common cultural background with China, yet you rarely see people cutting in line. Moreover, people will stand to the right on escalator to let walkers go by on the left and patiently wait for people to come off the subway before they climb in.
I personally feel this is because there’s a sense of fairness here in Taiwan, that you won’t get screwed by the powerful and that the law will protect you. It sounds like an over analysis, but until that sense of fairness exists in China, expect to have someone cut in line when you’re in China.
Thanks for your comment Paul. I appreciate your sharing of insights for the culture of in Taiwan.
I feel like there is no ways to define law in China. All the laws and regulations are actually very strict there, people would get very heavy punishment if found guilty. But the problem is there is no incentives for government officials to execute the rules. They are more prone to develop the economy in their own province because of the subsequent promotion to higher position in the government. In the end, there is no rules. People don’t care about public hygiene, nor anything outside their circle. This is the Chinese way of individualism.
For Taiwan, I don’t know it very well, but from what you shared, I sense a bit similarities to Hong Kong. Hong Kong people also have a sense of fairness because they think that ‘people deserve what they own’. If someone has the right to something, others wouldn’t deprive of your right to that.
In the future, the improvement of China’s public behavior is hard to say. It would also be interesting to see how Chinese people would change if they adopt what Taiwanese and Hong Kongers think.
There are indeed tons of laws in China. But they only apply to those without power or guanxi or money or all of the above.
Let me share with you an example. During dinner on night, some friends talked about how a certain person was taken to jail because he fled the scene of a car accident in which someone died. They mentioned had he stayed, everything would have been fine. I asked how can that be? They replied that all he had to do was to reach an agreeable financial settlement with the relatives, then court and jail time would have been avoided. So indeed, you can get away with murder in China.
Given this environment, why would anyone give a crap about waiting in line?
Well.. yes, guanxi and money are the most important things to get things done easily in China.
Thanks for sharing the case. I found it quite interesting and sad. Also it’s very common. Chinese people seemed to believed in a “mutually-agreed justice”. For example, if they didn’t mention the guy had fled, that guy wouldn’t have sentenced to jail. Now that they did mentioned the guy had fled, so to achieve “justice”, the guy got to compensate the family for loss.
No one gives a crap indeed. They’re just making things more crappy and suffer the crap themselves.
Great post, Jin! Enjoyed reading it while in the sub
I personally feel this is because there’s a sense of fairness here in Taiwan, that you won’t get screwed by the powerful and that the law will protect you.
Paul, I could not agree with you. Yes, Taiwanese stand in lines, but how about their driving behavior? Scooters, cars? Where is the civil behavior gone here? I think be it Taiwanese, HK people or Mainland Chinese, every society has good and bad points and all of them have a lot of room for improvement when it comes to the way people behave in public. It’s a little tough to compare Taiwan and HK to China, which is like 43 times more populated, but it does make sense from the cultural perspective, as these 3 societies dominated by Han Chinese have had their own history and development in the past 100 years. Singapore could be added as well, but is usually dropped (guess they are too “unique”, hehe).
Coming back to Taipei, I’ve seen quite many interesting characters in the Taipei Metro and I even blogged about it: http://mykafkaesquelife.blogspot.com/2011/05/top5-strangest-characters-in.html
Maybe you can comment there, Jin, and tell me, if these characters also appear in the Hong Kong MTR.
Thanks for your support MKL.
I think that Paul is right in some sense, but yes.. to say that “Taiwan shares a common cultural background” maybe a bit misleading, considering the “independence” of Taiwan and the population and government directives.
But I also agree that Paul said that people don’t give a damn to public misbehavior. If you don’t misbehave in China, you would end up suffering (e.g. not getting seats).
Thanks for sharing the article about the metro in Taiwan. It’s an interesting one. I guess it all happens anywhere in Hong Kong and China. It’s just the proportion of each type of people in the train that differ.
Your information is INACCURATE at best!!
You said:
“In China, it’s a well-known norm that no matter how much you want the seat after cutting the queues, you still need to give your seat to elderly people, pregnant women and the handicapped, especially the first category. Respecting the elderly is one of the core values in the traditional Chinese culture.”
Have you ever been to China?
I cannot tell you how many times I have seen 98 year old Grandmothers holding a 1 year old child in arm; while 5 or 6 teenagers are sprawled out legs spread wide so they occupy 2 subway seats at a time. All the while nose stuck to a 2 inch cell phone screen playing a bubble breaker.
Or
The innumerable amount of times a door is allowed to slam shut in the face of a old decrepit man who ways no more than 69 pounds soaking wet in a rain storm. A man who is so weak he can barely push the door open; yet alone slow it down as it slams back into him.
Or
The idiot who steps up to an Elevator with 10 boxes….boxes he feels the need to place DIRECTLY in front of the elevator door…. Preventing people on the elevator from exiting.
Or
The parents who decide it is best to let their 6 year old occupy a seat next to them while child’s grandparents suffer through the jerk speed up/breaking motions ofd the bus.
Or
The pregnant woman who gets squeezed into a counter at a local convenience store; because a kids gotta have his fish balls. Sure she was in line in front of him. But hey….. theres really no line is there. Fuck the pregnant woman. She apparently likes it. How do you think she got pregnant?
Or
The handicapped person left begging on the street. Speakers kick over and trampled by a crowd of people sickened by his continual presence and poor singing.
Or
The burn victim with open scabs, that clearly need medical attention. Passerby’s merely walk over as if invisible. Do not act like they give a damn about handicap. I assure you…….. They dont.
Chinese people are amont the most Caring, Considerate, Generous people in the world……… If you are in the circle of trust.
Outside that circle? You dont exist.
Come share your thoughts on our page about China etiquette http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/China-Etiquette/492428547434999
quoted:
“穷山恶水出刁民
仓廪实而知礼节。”
如是而已。
其实刁民，不过就是只考虑自己与家人，最多再考虑一下自己的小群体利益的人，为了这个利益，不择手段而已。当资源缺少的的时候，在争夺资源的时候自然就会不择手段，这很正常。
我记得零八年那次经济危机的时候，同论坛英国的坛友发了个贴说他的房东也开始用滴水法让水表不转了——这原来是精英们嘲笑中国小市民素质低下的梗好不好——这说明什么，这说明仓廪实是人民不成为刁民的一个先决条件。
我觉得这就是个人类发展的基本路径。
资源越少，人越自私，所能维护的群体越小，群体之间相互之间争夺手段也越不择手段。
资源越丰富，人越无私，所能维护的群体越大，而群体之间相互争夺的手段也越多样化越和平。
当然无论什么时候总有一些智者能超越自己所在的年代、群体看到未来的发展。
我常常有个幻想，某日，地球大同了，地球上的众生快乐的生活在一起。
突然之间，受到了宇宙联盟的邀请，要求去讨论下银河系西区资源分配问题。
最后，地球代表满载而归，为地球争夺了很多意想不到的资源。
…………….
不过，自此之后，地球众生便在宇宙众生之中留下了穷凶极恶小刁民的称号
原因嘛，那些资源太宝贵了，对地球人来说，太重要了，礼仪谦让啥的比起这些资源来算个啥啊。