Dealing with queue jumpers

[roddy]

I just came up with

Me: 排队不行吗？

Him: 我着急

Me: 我们都着急， 只有你没有礼貌

Not sure if I got that entirely right, and my pronunciation probably messed up the effect, but it felt good . . .

Any more?

Roddy

[woodcutter]

I used to get by with "Oi! Paidui! Paidui!" and a poke or two.

But several people have told me I should be more tolerant - the queue jumpers are only pushing to the front because they have a genuine great need to do so. Since I almost got into a fight at Nanning, I try not to worry about such things so much.

[roddy]

Actually, can you use zhaoji like that? Maybe I heard or remembered wrong because I was enjoying myself too much . . .

Either way, I do think you are right, but this guy tried to push past me after I let a 12 year old kid back in after she only bought one ticket instead of the two she needed.

[PollyWaffle]

i push in front of people because i am anxious? were u waiting in line at the hospital & his wife was about to give birth?

in an extremely tired state, i grabbed a guy & pulled him out of the way when he tried to push in front of me at the toilet on the train to shanghai... not too proud of it, but it was effective

[bokane]

I think you could say something like 我们都着急，用不着你来加塞儿！ Anyway, good job on striking a blow for justice and civility: I miss China and everything, but queue-jumping just used to drive me crazy.

[LiYuanXi]

I met lots of kids queue jumpers in beijing especially in macdonalds. Usually i just poke them and signal them to go behind me. I just can stand it when people dont queue up!

[Entropy_Rising]

I think we've all had it happen to ourselves one time or another - blatant line-breaking. It's happened to me several times here where I live (I don't know if it happens to me with particularly frequency because I physically don't look like a foreigner and therefore may strike other people here as a naive local), but today, it really roused my ire but I realized I didn't have any way to respond. I was at a Xinhua Bookstore just to by one teensy weensy book, and literally all the storage bin thingies were broken except one rack. I waited patiently right beside the control panel for someone to remove their stuff but literally 3 or 4 times when someone came to retrieve their items 4 or 5 other people would float out of the woodworks and brazenly reach over me to take the newly emptied spot. I realized I didn't really have the linguistic equipment or the desire to start a verbal argument to resist.

Any suggestions on the best way to handle this situation? What to say and what to do?

I realized then and there that I had hard time saying "I came here before you" in proper Mandarin. The best I could come up with was 我来的比你早 or 我比你来得早. But I don't even know if that's grammatically correct, or whether or not saying this in such a context would even make sense or get my point across. Eventually I didn't say anything but managed to get my stuff in after wasting 10-15 minutes just waiting there. Any tips would be appreciated!

[imron]

Merged with similar topic.

[Entropy_Rising]

Ah, my bad about the "similar topic" thing. Being a silly American that I am, I didn't search for "queue" when searching through old posts.

[xuechengfeng]

I used to do this at McDonald's when people would just waltz right in front of me and I'd say... 你不知道怎么排队？

I completely just made that up and it was probably wrong, but they got the idea. Usually at a place like a train station, I just wait 'til everyone gets on because it's useless to scold someone, but come on, at a fast-food joint with 3 or 4 people in front of you, is it really necessary to cut in line?!?!

[gato]

I realized then and there that I had hard time saying "I came here before you" in proper Mandarin. The best I could come up with was 我来的比你早 or 我比你来得早. Any tips would be appreciated!

You could just "Eh, eh, eh. 你干嘛？“ But the most effective approach is probably not to say anything at all and just use your body to block others who are behind you. This is what the locals do.

[Shadowdh]

But the most effective approach is probably not to say anything at all and just use your body to block others who are behind you. This is what the locals do.

This is where being 6 foot and 110kg comes in handy... some great suggestions here I didnt think of... will store in the old grey matter for future reference... cheers

[muyongshi]

Once when I was in Beijing visiting the forbidden city, as the two lines gradually merged into one, there was a guy that kept pushing his way in front of me (and I do me pushing) and then once he did that right before he got to the window he forced his was in front of this tiny (i think) south american girl (very forcibly) and the look on her face was one of such helplessness that I just blew up and started yelling at the guy. Can't remember exactly what I said but something involving a derivation of the phrase 先来后到. He was so pissed and he looked like he was going to hit me and there was 500 people staring at him. The lady behind the counter refused to take his money wanted to send him to the back of the line. The girl bought her tickets, I let him buy his as I didn't want to push it further and then I bought mine.

[zozzen]

To avoid embarrassment, you better start it with politeness.

That's what i faced before:

Me: "排隊! 排隊! " (said rudely)

Him: "我是跟他排在一起的...." (His old mother was ahead of me)

Another situation:

Me: "排隊! 排隊!" (said annoyingly)

Him: "是在這邊排隊....... " (啊, 是我沒排隊)

The safest way to me is like this:

Me: "請問是在這裡排隊嗎?"

Him: "是啊. "

Me: "那你排在後面吧, 是在後面排隊的."

Mostly worked, except this one....

The worst case I faced:

Him: "怎樣啦! 我十分鐘前就排在這裡, 幹嗎要再排一次."

Me: "我十年前就在這裡排過, 難道不用排隊. 都奧運了, 講點文明好不好."

Him: "我操你 Ma 個屁, 呸, 我不排就不排. "

What you need is not oral Chinese, but body language, possibly.

But i think another disturbing problem happens when someone jumps the queue to ask too many questions. In McDonald's, when the cashier changed money to me, a disturbing woman kept asking a lot of questions, and dragged my time for 30 seconds.

me: "你問夠了沒? 她在數錢, 你老是在旁邊問這個問那個, 煩不煩! 她數錯錢是不是你賠?"

her: ".............對不起." (looked sorrowful and embarrassing)

You possibly regretted saying over-toned words to this poor lady.

[gougou]

You possibly regretted saying over-toned words to this poor lady.

I think this is very useful advice, not just in dealing with poor ladies. Most of the times asking a question will get you further than confronting people, as many will appreciate that you give them an opportunity to save face.

[heifeng]

But i think another disturbing problem happens when someone jumps the queue to ask too many questions. In McDonald's, when the cashier changed money to me, a disturbing woman kept asking a lot of questions, and dragged my time for 30 seconds.

me: "你問夠了沒? 她在數錢, 你老是在旁邊問這個問那個, 煩不煩! 她數錯錢是不是你賠?"

her: ".............對不起." (looked sorrowful and embarrassing)

You possibly regretted saying over-toned words to this poor lady.

hahah..a full 30 seconds...see how you haven't embraced the concept of wasting time yet...not that I am encouraging you too. I can't even stand still long enough to take escalators on the subway and get really really angry when people stand on the left:mrgreen:

Once this father let his kid cut in front of me at a bakery. I tried to give face and direct him to the end of the line, his dad even said to the kid listen to jiejie, but then still let him cut when the kid ingnored me. Then, i just muttered something to myself about this pangdun'r xiao huangdi shenme de and and no wonder why adults don't jiang wenming...but i doubt it was audible. My hidden anger is just slightly above mute when verbalized. However, the kid did save me some calories and RMB because it gave me just enough time to just reconsider my sugary purchase and leave the store:mrgreen: So it all works out in the long run....

[imron]

I can't even stand still long enough to take escalators on the subway and get really really angry when people stand on the left

Argh... this is one of my pet peeves. I'll usually take the stairs too, however if the escalator isn't entirely clogged up and there are only a few people standing on the left, I'll usually make a point of walking up the left side stepping loudly which is usually enough to get people to realise they should be standing on the right. If they still don't get it, I'll ask them politely to stand on the right and that usually does the trick. What really annoys me though is that due to the new renovations at Xizhimen, if you are going up to line 13 you have to take the escalator Yesterday, on that one tiny section, I must have asked about 20 people to stand on the right

Still, the situation's a lot better than it used to be, but it's not going to be right by the time the Olympics get here.

[Lu]

If so many people get it wrong maybe they need to put some metro employee at the start of every escalator to tell people to stand right. It doesn't come natural, after all, people have to be trained.

It's one of the reasons I love Taiwan: people here are actually wenming enough to almost always stand right. Back in Holland people don't seem to even be aware the concept exists, and that it would save everybody so much time.

[imron]

They occasionally have people standing there, but they don't seem to be telling people how to do it correctly. They also have plenty of signage explaining the correct way of doing things.

When discussing this once with Chinese friends one of them told me it was unscientific to stand on the right and leave empty space on the escalator, the reason being that by leaving half the space empty, only half the number of people could go up in the same amount of time The fact that a large number of people would walk up the empty space didn't seem to factor into the equation anywhere.

[gougou]

The fact that a large number of people would walk up the empty space didn't seem to factor into the equation anywhere.

But is that really the case in China? The large majority of people does not seem to be interested in walking by what I have seen.