Once you’ve been living in China for awhile, you begin filtering out all the background noise and taking many of the things you once marveled at for granted. This includes the bad stuff and often the good stuff too. I suppose that’s the natural thing to happen as you settle in, becoming wiser in the ways you navigate what was once your new surroundings, populated as it once were by all those foreign people. Live here long enough and you might even return home (wherever that may be) to suddenly and ironically find yourself unaccustomed to how you once lived pre-China.
It is, surely, a testament to one’s ability to adapt.
I usually ride the Shanghai metro to get wherever I need to be and, like most people, I tend to pass through People’s Square metro hub quite often. That is where the two oldest Shanghai metro lines intersect in the heart of downtown Shanghai and, as you can imagine, it gets a lot of people passing through representing a good cross-section of the population. It is, simply put, a great place to observe the forward marching progress of Chinese urban civilities.
Photo Credit: www.shanghaicalling.com
Now, it wasn’t long ago that the People’s Square station featured, frustratingly, teeming mobs of humanity that swelled forth towards the train doors blocking the very teeming mobs of humanity within that tried to swell out. Of course, jam-packed subway trains are nothing new, particularly within big metropolitan cities in Asia. Moreover, many of us have seen those cute pictures of little Japanese metro attendants wearing white gloves trying to shove yet another sardine into the can. Well, jam-packed subway trains in and subway stations in China, even oh-so-modern Shanghai, are a whole different, ludicrous beast. They rightfully confound many a jostled foreigner, who wonders: “why can’t they obey the damn signs?” Of course, these signs spell out what should be a common sense maxim: let those inside get off first, then board.
If the people in Hong Kong and Taipei can do it, why not the mainlanders?
Photo Credit: www.shanghaicalling.com
Well, the very logical answers to that age-old question are beyond the scope of this piece, and wholly irrelevant because, alas, times are changing. Since I first arrived in Shanghai, the People’s Square metro stop has been redesigned to solve the enigma of why it takes longer to go from Line 1 to Line 2 than going from Line 2 to Line 1. They’ve also, somehow, made great strides in civilizing the masses, as I recently actually bothered to look up from my cell phone Sudoku game (my commute pastime of choice) and beheld the most curious of sights: People waiting with a reasonable amount of patience by the sides of the train doors leaving an exit path open to let the passengers within get off before swelling forth into the train.
It was mind-blowing.
I admit, fully, that I’ve had my nose stuck in my Motorola on the subways for far too long now, paying little heed to anything else save the announcement of my destination stop and the woefully expensive Gucci wallet I received as a gift (arguably the most expensive and wholly unnecessary part of my low-maintenance existence). Have all those Shanghai municipal government and transit authority efforts to teach basic courtesy to the denizens of this great city so they won’t embarrass themselves in front of tourists been paying off?
Good god, they have!
For the briefest of moments, I had snapped out of my daily routine of being oblivious to what I had long ago accepted as commonplace and no longer worth noting.
This was a most reassuring development.
Now, I’m not quite sure if it was precisely at that exact moment that I swiveled my head to the flat-screen televisions installed in the subway trains here, or if it was during some other ride, but I was suddenly face to face with Jeremy Clarkson, on Top Gear, reviewing the Ariel Atom.
Surprise #2.
I love Clarkson in a most non-homoerotic way because I love Top Gear. I love Top Gear because I have loved cars like any red-blooded male who has hung a Lamborghini Countach poster in his room when he was a wee little boy and grew up to discover both the internet and how said internet could bring fantastic BBC programming and British humor to lands dry of, well, fantastic BBC programming and British humor. Here was a man paid handsomly to drive the world’s most exotic, testicle-tingling machines and, for the first time ever, I was able to watch it riding the metro (tube?), crammed with all the other car-less suckers of Shanghai.
Bloody fantastic.
Despite reminding me of my no-car-reduced-to-mass-transit lifestyle here in urban China, it surprised me because it represented an importation of not just British pop culture but also of the increasing Chinese culture of car-ownership. To be sure, China could do with less cars and the people driving them, but Top Gear running segments of its show as advertising half way around the world in Shanghai’s metro was fascinating. It was, for me, such a beautiful sign of culture-crossing, globalizing interests. What red-blooded mainland Chinese male wouldn’t love to watch an overweight Brit carting himself around with oodles of groin-quivering horsepower, looking forward to the day they too can partake in such delights?
This was a most aspirational development.
For those who have never been to China, I can attest that China is probably quite different from what you envision it to be. For those, like me, who have been here for awhile, it might be a good idea to wake up from our stupor every once in awhile and ask ourselves if we’ve noticed any positive non-political changes lately.
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How the Shanghai metro and its riders has grown and improved over the years in China, as well as a somewhat physical altercation with a shameless gate-jumper.
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Yes, its difficult for Westerners who live in a much more slowly evolving society to continuously reinvent their perception about China. For example, my last trip was in May and I’m sure things have changed a lot since then! At least the People’s Square interchange, which I didn’t experience since January.
In all the discussion about cultural differences, its easy to forget what we all have in common. For example, we all want to make money. We all like fast cars. And we all are probably too materialistic and hedonistic for our own good. LOL. But that is a fine place to build connections and relationships that can grow into something more.
Don’t assume too much. There are many of us who don’t like fast cars, aren’t too materialitic and aren’t hung up on making money. Many of us just want enough money to get by on while we live an interesting life. Shanghai is certainly interesting but it’s also gratingly materialistic.
Whoa, guys, I was just talking about two interesting things I saw on the Shanghai metro. Where did all this money and materialism stuff come from?
I like motorcycles too.
simple life is best
Guess what? China has been getting its shit together slowly but surely, while the rest of the world has been busy watching lame TV shows… if you can actually have taught people how to line up here, then ANYTHING is possible! on to the spitting and they’ll have a utopia!!
Hey Kai, it’s me from chinasmack :D
Be still my heart, Chinese people actually queuing up AND Top Gear? Now as long as they don’t advertise “Planet Earth” as a cooking show, we’ve got something good going.
My favourite segment was when they raced the car against the jet.
Hey Chinamerican, it’s you from chinaSMACK!
Be still my heart, you watch Top Gear?!?
Wait, you’re married already, aren’t you?
*snaps fingers* Damn…
Where exactly do these line ups occur? I still see people pushing and shoving in subways, bus stops, and pretty much everywhere, be there a shortage or surplus of whatever people want. People’s square is incredibly frustrating, glad they shortened the distance between lines 1 and 2 but most people still have no manners or common sense, it’s push and shove all the way
Alas, dear friend, my observation was an improvement at specifically the People’s Square metro stop, not necessarily elsewhere. As well-traveled as I am, I can definitely attest that pushing and shoving still regularly occurs at other less prominent stations and with other forms of mass transit. My point, however, was just to rejoice at beholding some improvement.
The lack of manners and common sense is understandable given the context of their upbringing, so well just have to patiently wait for all our social-engineering to take effect! Mayhaps our children will enjoy a Chinese society unencumbered by the devastation of the Cultural Revolution and relative socio-economic poverty.
Hi Kai,
I’m probably a little late to reply to this post but wanted to react anyway because changing metro’s at renminguangchang is one of the things that just takes the energy out of me every day.
It is true that slowly things are improving in Shanghai and things are more civilized then when I came here 5 years ago. Still People’s Square is one of the hardest things to deal with.
Every day I still get out of the metro while pushing back some dumbfounded Chinese (that was apparently assuming they could walk right through me, although I’m a head bigger) while telling them “xian xia, hou shang”.
The only times that people will wait at the side of the metro doors is when the mass of people going out is overwhelmingly larger then the people wanting to go in. Purely strength of numbers. I think you just had one of those lucky moments when you looked up from your Motorola.
I’ve been through all the phases here: first being curious about the Chinese culture, then being repulsed by it to the point of almost being racist, being able to laugh about it again, then trying to assimilate, but finally being tired of it.
There are many aspects to this exhaustion, but one of them is the general Chinese attitude of always wanting to be “first”. This phenomenon not only very apparent at metro stops like Renmin Square, but also daily observable in traffic.
It is hard to blame them with so many people fighting over little resources and space for the last few decades, but it is hard to accept either being a foreigner growing up in a culture always trying to be courteous. To live in Chinese society you at least have to assimilate to the point of also “pushing to be first” not to be overrun by the masses. After 5 years I’m tired of pushing. I want to be able to let people go in front of me without running the risk of never ending up “at the front of the line”.
“Better City Better Life” doesn’t mean anything for as long as the Chinese people don’t realize that altruism is not such a bad thing. Every time I see this slogan (now ironically integrated in the metro standing hand grips) I have to laugh a little inside.
Also as an architect I would like to comment that the new design layout of the transition between line 1 and 2 logistically totally messed things up. Although previously the distances might not have been the same, there were separate people flows for both directions and transition was relatively peaceful.
Now the two directions clash and only the seasoned metro traveler knows that to avoid this clash you have to make sure that when you come from line 2, you can take the escalators up from the platform closest to the stairs to line 1. There is a possibility to take make a right U-turn, just after the escalator avoid the violence.
Unfortunately coming from line 1 this is not an option.
In sharp contrast there is the central underground “square” that is designed quite spaciously, but where almost nobody walks (just outside of the ticket gates).
Every time I’m there I curse the designers for ignoring common sense in logistics.
Anyway, just wanted to say that your experiences surprised me as they are so much in contrast with my own.
On a completely different note, I always really enjoy your very educated comments on Chinasmack (how long will that one stay in the air?) and admire the objective reasoning and rationale of those.
Hum…”Chinese people” is of course a gross generalization. I got a little enthusiastic writing about Renmin Square.