Pretty girl with new-spangled platform gates installed along Shanghai's Line 2 Metro, likely to prevent suicide jumpers.
I ride the Shanghai Metro regularly to get where I need to go around Shanghai. The buses are often too much hassle to figure out the correct route for the extra kuai or two it might save. With taxis, it’s definitely pricier and, while more comfortably, often they’re no faster than the subway for any trips not decidedly close to where you are.
Over the years, the Shanghai Metro has exploded with new lines canvassing much of downtown Shanghai, a trend that will continue for some time until we’re all living not on solid earth but on subway tunnels. Things have, believe it or not, also improved with regards to, er, civility of the metro-riding populace and experience. The old bemused to annoyed observation that the Chinese mob on and mob off the subways is still true but, again, things have gotten better.
For example, these days you will occasionally encounter a platform of people of a certain strata that will actually wait beside the opening subway doors to let the passengers out before they board. It is still rare, sure, but it happens. Frankly, I think the main reason behind the impatience to get on by those waiting has much to do with the brief duration the subway doors are open. With so many people sometimes riding the subways during peak hours, you have a lot of people disembarking the train car each time. In such circumstances, by the time they’re all out, the doors are already beeping and closing, threatening to lock you out and forcing you to wait until the next train for another shot. For many would-be riders, this presents a conundrum: “Do I let the people out first or do I try to get on as quickly as I can to make sure I actually do get on before the door closes?”
Another example of things getting better are the new lines splitting the escalators into a standing lane on the right and a passing lane on the left, not unlike Hong Kong. Those who aren’t keen to climb can stand while leaving room for the inevitable subset of riders who have the spring in their step to get where they want to go faster by climbing pass them. This compromise for the impatient does wonders in easing congestion as people exit (or enter) the station’s waiting platforms.
Escalator with signs instructing people to stand on the right and pass on the left.
Alas, of course, these new measures and improvements are inconsistently realized because they are inconsistently obeyed by the varied masses of Shanghai. Those who get it, get it, but there are still so many who simply don’t and may never get it because they’re obtuse or simply inconsiderate. They’ll continue to stand right smack in the middle of the opening subway doors to block all the people inside trying to get out. They’ll get on the left lane of the escalator and stand happily chatting with their friend, seemingly oblivious to the fact that everyone ahead of them had properly climbed up and that everyone they’re holding up behind them is glaring at them in silent contempt. Bastards and bitches like them exist everywhere, banes of human progress.
But I sure do appreciate the Shanghai Metro nonetheless. It is definitely convenient, enough for me to not want a car in dense Shanghai, despite being a hardcore petrol-head. Even with all the persistent nuisances, again, things are getting better…and I’m as encouraged by them as anyone who has seen better, more civil, more efficient behavior from subway systems of equally populous cities elsewhere.
Here, finally, is where I want to get to what I had wanted to share this entire time: my altercation with a gate-jumper yesterday exiting the Jin An Temple metro station.
A fence-hopper, close relative to the gate-jumper. Slightly more limber, equally shady.
If you’re unfamiliar, gate-jumpers are those daring individuals who decide they’re not actually going to pay for a subway ticket to ride the subway. Instead, they’re going to try sneaking in and out, hoping that no one will notice or that no one will bother stopping them. They’ll hop over or duck under the turnstiles guarding the entrances and exits of the metro station, once going in and another time coming back out. If they succeed, they’ll save anywhere from 3-6 RMB or so depending on how far their destination stop is. Unsurprisingly, you’ll get a lot of poorer folks doing this. While you’ll wonder if it’s really worth the few RMB they’d save, you also can’t help but wonder just how poor they must be for them to do such a thing for those few RMB. Of course, you’ll also have the cheapskates as well, who will simply try to do whatever they can get away with. Ride the Metro long enough and you’ll bear witness to these gate-jumpers every so often, and there’s generally little you can do other than shake your head in disdain from afar.
So, yesterday around 5:30pm, I ran into a gate-jumper face-to-face. I had reached the exit turnstiles and just swiped my stored-value transportation card to exit. The little light flashed indicating that my fare was docked and the gate unlocked for me to pass through. At this precise moment, a man suddenly appeared in front of me and tried to hop over, disregarding the fact that I was actually in his way. His foot caught one of the turnstile arms and he failed to get over, but succeeded in turning the unlocked turnstile thereby locking it again, with me still behind it, not yet exited.
A man ducking the turnstiles to avoid paying fare.
Initially, I was a little taken aback by what had just happened, wondering why there was suddenly a guy trying to get in while I was trying to get out. I mean, this is an exit, right? Can’t you let me out first before trying to come in? Of course, a split second later I knew the guy’s intentions but was still perplexed with his audacity of not just trying to cheat the system but also trying to do so against the flow of traffic. I stared at him, my eyes asking him the question, “are you stupid?” while part of me wondered for a moment how I’m supposed to get out now that he used up my turnstile turn. Much to my astonishment…
…the guy actually tries to jump over again! And again right in front of me, in my exit lane, which meant he’d then have to push his way through me into the station. Without thinking, I immediately pushed him back, with two hands, full-force, preventing him from crossing over, and sending him back down onto the ground. Traffic slowed to a crawl around me as other exiting riders took in the situation, perhaps a little surprised by my decidedly physical reaction, likely curious to see what would happen next. I stood my ground, calmly glaring my “what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” question at the guy, surprised and slightly unsure how to react to my shoving him back and down. He was about as wide as me, but a bit shorter, and given the lack of moral support he could possibly muster given the circumstances, he quickly dashed to another turnstile, hopped over, and ran away into the station ignoring the bystander admonishing him for not buying a ticket and the station attendant that helplessly yelled at him to stop while muttering a few obscenities in response to all of us.
Slightly perturbed and now a few minutes late, I walked over to the attendant booth to get another ticket that would let me through the exit turnstiles and continue on my way.
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“Another example of things getting better are the new lines splitting the escalators into a standing lane on the right and a passing lane on the left, not unlike Hong Kong.”
Hurrah! Whilst this is an informal Internationally accepted escalator etiquette of “stand right, walk left” which applies in left hand drive USA to right hand drive UK & Europe… for reasons best known to someone else, the MTR Corporation of Hong Kong had (stupidly) been trying in the last year or so to enforce everyone to “stand and not walk on escalators”…
I lived in Hong Kong for six years. They have been stating this all the time that I was there. I don’t think it’s a new thing.
They’ve started doing it in New York now.
Except in Japan where you stand on the left. And in Australia no-one cares either way.
“… swiped my stored-value transportation card to exit …”
“… walked over to the attendant booth to get another ticket that would let me through the exit turnstiles and continue on my way.”
This part of the story is fishy. You only have to swipe the card again at the central booth in front of the staff there and they’ll politely let you out through a side door knowing you did not cheat. Actually it not possible to get another ticket “inside” there just to swipe your way out.
So, Mr Kai Pan, why did you bother to make this bit up if the story is true? What are the points you want to make here?
jc,
Don’t be silly. There’s nothing fishy or made up in my story. I too expected that they’d just unlock the gate beside the booth and let me through after handing them my card so they could verify that I had just swiped it but obviously didn’t make it out. However, the male attendant helping me obviously decided he’d take a normal ticket, code it for an exit, and hand it to me instructing me to just exit normally with it instead of my transportation card.
Now, I’m not sure why he chose this method. I didn’t check if the gate was physically locked. If it was, I imagine it would require one of them to come out and unlock it. If so, they were quite swamped at the time (rush hour) and probably coding a new ticket was quicker because it didn’t require them to leave the booth. Given that I had somewhere to be, I didn’t bother to inquire as to why they chose to do what they did.
As you should know, the booth attendants can definitely sell and recode tickets “inside”. It isn’t as if I went to buy a new ticket at a kiosk/vending machine. The guy simply checked my transportation card to verify my story and gave me a temporary card to insert into the turnstile so I could exit. I’m not sure why you’d say such a thing is “not possible.”
I shared my observations and an experience. Any “points” you think I want to make here is entirely up to whatever you want to ascribe to me.
Years ago I used to see turnstile jumpers caught by security more often than not. Perhaps with the expansion of the subway system, security has been stretched thin?
I haven’t been in Shanghai in nearly 5 years. I can’t wait to return and see the changes, when I was there I recall there being 3 lines… but I am a bit foggy now
Perhaps the problem is that the city doesn’t do enough about gate jumpers. They should have working for the subway who just grab these gate jumpers, arrest them and set them as an example of those who wants to do that. It happened here in NYC. Why don’t they do that in there?
hmm…i was riding PATH (between WTC and the other side of the hudson in NJ) before 9-11. i saw gate-jumper almost every other ride.
the first time the jumper stared at me, with high hostility, and said “what are you looking at?”, and looks like he is going to charge at me (from about 20 feet away). i could have go to the staff, but i know they wouldn’t dare to do anything.
I too was occasionally annoyed by behavior on Shanghai’s subway system when I spent several months there earlier this year. But my experience yesterday on the Beijing Metro left me longing for the civility and sophistication of Shanghai. ;-)
Not paying for public transportation, subway, tramway or train, is a French specialty :lol:
In Shenzhen we have an even better system, the whole area to the metro is blocked by a glass wall. Only after the metro arrived (and has stopped) at the metro-station, the doors will open.
You can see a photo of it here:
http://www.startinchina.com/shenzhen/transport/shenzhen_metro_subway.html
Mm, I’ve always thought that the Shenzhen subway looks an awful lot like the MTR…
I’m all for ‘honesty boxes’ as a means of fare collection. They could use the Shanghai Metro for a pilot scheme.
The pushing on is because of the short time the doors are open?
Please!
Can we have fewer excuses and more acceptance that, yes, Chinese do in fact push and shove and generally behave like rude bastards?
And I agree, it’s improving.
It has NOTHING to do with the length of time the doors are open for though. They do this in EVERY situation. Buses, elevators, subways, buffet tables, you name it. . . Selfish rude bastards.
Guangzhou’s subway etiquette is FAR better than most western countries and raks up there with even the best. There is rarely ever any pushing or shoving, even when it’s crowded, which it often is. You should switch your Iron Mask to a plastic bag.
Mike Fish (if that’s even your real name) … I politely beg to differ. The GZ subway is nuts!#$@$@!#!#%
I politely beg to differ-differ… nuts? Compared to where? Tokyo? Paris? Even when it’s crowded in GZ, though there might be lots of body contact, none of it really counts as pushing or shoving, does it? In Tokyo they have to jam you in and pry you out. In Paris the metro is a chaotic filthy dangerous mess. In my fishy opinion GZ’s metro and its riders, though not perfect, are certainly far more civil than the Man in the Iron Mask.
When’s the last time you rode the Guangzhou Metro? What line?
There are copious amounts of pushing and shoving. The issues listed in the above blog all apply as well. Agree with you on crowding though, which is par for course in any major metropolitan area.
Leonardo Di Caprio,
I believe the pushing on has “much” to do with the short time the doors are open. It boils down to supply and demand. The supply being the available time and space to get onto the subway, the demand being the dense crowds trying to get on and off. As I wrote, this is particularly true during peak hours.
This isn’t an “excuse” as much as it is an observable fact. More importantly, no where did I suggest this is the only reason that people push, shove, or behave “rudely”. Nor am I denying that many people in China push, shove, and can behave in what we consider to be rude ways. However, this is definitely one reason that tends to hamper coordinated efforts to improve the situation such as signs and admonishments that people, for example, wait to let people out before trying to get on. People tend to ignore instructions when they don’t work. It takes just one experience of waiting patiently only to have the doors clothes on you before you start thinking you should try to get on earlier next time. Compound this.
China is a populous country. Anytime you have a dense population, the propensity for pushing and shoving increases exponentially. Yes, selfish and rude people contribute to this. Yes, poor upbringing and bad habits contribute as well. But so does the length of time the doors are open. I’m not sure why you’re so enthusiastic to argue it has “NOTHING” to do with the issue of crowding on subways and so enthusiastic to chant that the Chinese are “rude bastards”. I pray you never visit India. Your head might explode.
In Paris they use big seven foot high black rubber edged doors on pneumatic hinges. They open and close when you insert your ticket. Their installation throughout the whole system was during the 1980s in response to poor Parisians doing exactly what those folks in Shanghai are doing today – jumping the turnstiles. Pix here:-
http://knol.google.com/k/-/-/2sp607vlzrjtk/bbsdrx/metroexitmontparnasse.jpg
Sometimes they use high glass doors too:-
http://knol.google.com/k/-/-/2sp607vlzrjtk/bbsdrx/turnstilesinfoticketsmlv.jpg
It would be very expensive for the Shanghai Metro to install the same ticket barrier doors as in the Paris Metro, but they would recoup the loss in ticket revenue over time…
I took the metro in most majors cities in China, and i am always surprised to see that the Shanghai one is still the worst. It’s just insane, they run like crazy just to have a sit. They always pretend to be the most civilized people in China, but as soon as you enter the metro, it becomes another world. In other cities like Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Nanjing…, people seems to be more civilized. Sure that it’s not perfect but at least, people are not as crazy as in Shanghai.
i also think that door clothes time is a major factor-i mean even at non peak times and when there is barely anybody on the train this pushing still exists.id say like at least 90% of the time its like this. i too have noticed a few ppl now waiting to the sides-but it is as rare as hens teeth.but compared to other metros ive been on-shanghai is the worst in terms of etiquette.beijing was 10 times better than shanghai in this sense.
as for the gate jumpers-who really gives a shit-sure u can afford the 3-6rmb on your entrepreneur status, legal career in shanghai. but 3-6rmb for someone who makes sweet F.A. working their arse off all day is a challenge. it ends up between 180 and 360rmb per month if u add it all up.and to think of the average wage(and not the shanghainese college grad wage but the average chinese wage) then that is a mighty chunk of ones living costs.Fuck-does it really affect u in such a way that u have to write about it here. but hey if i was a shanghainese asshole in some expensive suit and shoes-then id be fukn pissed too, but leave the poorer out of it
jamie,
I don’t think your presumptions about my “entrepreneur status, legal career in shanghai” have anything at all to do with my observations. I also don’t think I was looking down on the poor. Frankly, I thought I had fairly qualified my statement that some gate-jump out of true poverty and others do so simply because they can get away with it. If I’m being contemptuous of anyone, it would be the people who have no shame about breaking the rules that everyone else abides by, which is what I saw in the young man who tried to gate-jump right in front of me, against traffic, and then had the audacity to mutter some obscenities against me (and the rest of us who were calling him out for his behavior) as if we were somehow in the wrong.
The subway is a public service, one that costs money to operate. We exchange our money for the convenience it provides us. Those who cannot afford to ride it either make do with other forms of transportation (buses, bicycles, walking, etc.) or they play the system by gate-jumping. They knowingly break the rules, assume the risks, for their convenience. No one is forcing them to do so and as much as we can sympathize or empathize with their plight, we all accept the world isn’t fair sometimes, and it sucks, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t believe in people being bound by the same rules when they’re legitimate.
I can’t afford an Audi A8 in this city, and were I to steal one, I’d have no problems with someone criticizing me for it regardless of me claiming poverty. Poverty alone doesn’t justify the rules we break or the crimes we commit, no matter how sympathetic it may be.
As already mentioned in my narrative, I’ve witnessed gate-jumping plenty of times before, and no, it didn’t affect me enough for me to write about it then. I suppose my experience this time was, however, interesting enough for me to write about it now. To me, writing about something interesting is no different from you commenting about something you find interesting as well. What’s the problem?
I find that it is much easier to walk down the escalators than up. This is especially true if you make some heavy steps and sound like you might not stop; a ‘rang kai’ thrown in also helps. I have found no such methods effective for clearing a walking side on the way up.
the queue-cutting is annoying but bearable. But lord, the people who talk at the top of their voices on the trains! They tend to be middle-aged so their vocal chords were probably trained in the days of revolutionary slogan-shouting and no-one dares to tell them that was 30 years ago.
Just another Shanghai-bashing article from the author. Many of these problems in the subway, happen all over the world, maybe even worse.
I thought after the last picture I’d scroll down to read about the desk attendant not letting you out or blaming you for jumping in in the first place.
I would have pushed him too, but for fear of being ganged up on as a foreigner, which has happened to me before when I was otherwise in the right.