manninchina

I was going to write about a fun experience waiting in line at Subway the other day, but decided not to because I felt like I was just complaining about a problem that everyone is aware of and seems will never go away…the problem of lines in China.

I changed my mind at about 6:30am this morning as my family & I entered the Beijing airport heading for Shanghai. Massive amount of people. Police everywhere. Video cameras filming at every corner. It seems there are doing some mock runs in the domestic terminal & preparing for the move to the new Beijing Capital Airport. That’s great, glad to see they are doing these things now. But, there is the problem of lines. So, I sit here waiting to board the plane to tell of you about it.

Wherever you go, whether you’re walking or driving, most people in this country have a problem waiting in lines. My guess it’s really due to the sheer number of people in this country and many of them have the mentality of, “I need to worry about myself and do what I need to do to get ahead.” … I could be wrong there, but I think it’s fairly accurate.

There’s nothing wrong with that when it comes to improving the quality of your life…go for it, push ahead, get yours. But, when you’re behind me, next to me or on top of me in a line as it so happens, do not push ahead. Wait in line. Try to be patient. I know it sucks, but get over it.

This is a huge problem in this country. The main reason for the massive traffic congestion is the problem of lines. Agreed, there are millions (almost 3 million) of cars on the roads of Beijing. But, if people would just wait in their line, move only when it’s clear & keep moving, traffic would be much better. If people would wait at the street lights until it’s their turn to cross, traffic would be much better.

In the airport, do not push your way through the lines. That just pisses everyone off. On the airplane, do not push your way through everyone to be the first one off the plane. Relax. If you want to stand up as soon as the wheels hit the tarmac, go for it. But, you’ll likely fall on your ass one of these times.

It really is a hard thing to deal with here. I try very hard not to get pissed off. Sometimes I do, throw and elbow here, drop a shoulder there. Got to have the ipod on to try to tone it all out, that keeps me sane.

Time to board, hope you enjoyed the complaining

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 20th, 2008 at 11:44 pm and is filed under China, Beijing, Beijing Traffic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.