Yes, the Chinese have trouble with traditional manners when it comes to public spaces. The most common complaints from foreigners are usually related to forming lines. The Chinese have a tendency to scramble for things instead of lining up. Even older people cut in front of me in the cafeteria to get their breakfast. It takes a lot of patience not to start fights when this sort of effrontery occurs. I have to stop myself and remember that being hostile is not exactly polite either.That said, spitting and garbage are other big issues. If you want to throw something away, you just drop it, and I think peasants come by later to clean it up, haul it away, and get paid by the waste authority. At the end of every day, the street outside the University's back gate is littered with napkins, used chopsticks, bottles, cups, rotted vegetables, and assorted plastic items.
The advertisement shown above is part of the government's effort to civilize public life by encouraging the orderly use of crosswalks and pedestrian lights, particularly with the influx of tourists arriving next summer for the olympics.
1 comment:
You might elaborate a bit more on spitting, as it seems to be the FAVE pasttime of any and all chinese citizens. There's the used-watermelon-seed-spit (akin to sunflower seeds here), the brushing-your-teeth-much-too-vigorously spit (observable at close range on the train to Tibet... much too close range), and of course the everyday spit, which consists of obligatory preparatory noises followed by a hearty effluence. I really thought boys in the US were bad... I had no idea that they were merely the farm team of spitting to the Chinese major leagues.
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