Why is it that people cut in line in China?

[Brian US]

I've accepted all the social norms of living in China from the spitting, crazy driving, and watching a girlfriend/wife beat their man while he simply smokes. Yet, the one thing that really grinds my gears is the fact that people will cut you in line. Where there is a line, there is someone cutting.

Next person in line at grocery store to cashier I browse the candy, lady behind me cuts in front of me. First in line at the hospital when they re open after lunch, I'm simply pushed aside by a mob of people. I always call people out to 排队 it up and most of the time I'm met with the passive aggressive smile that means "you got me."

However, one time I was waiting in line at a small store window when a young guy stands next to me. It was only us and two people in front. I knew what he was pulling, so I told him to get in line. He heard me because the two men in front turned around, but the soon to be cutter ignored me. It was my turn and sure enough the young guy cuts in front of me. I again tell him to get in line, but he only pulls out his money. Reaching my boiling point I gave him a stiff solder and was successful in getting my order in and saving a precious 10 seconds.

I don't understand this social behavior, but this could be because I've never lived in a big city before. Just two weeks ago in the States I was insisting the man behind me to take the cashier that became available at a store. It seems worse than a random insult thrown at you because these people aren't even acknowledging your existence. Are other countries like this and should I leave my small town morals behind?

[gato]

See this old thread about this. Waiting in line is a contact sport in China.

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/2215-dealing-with-queue-jumpers/

Dealing with queue jumpers

[skylee]

Why indeed?

I always call people out to 排队 it up

I support you. This is what I usually do (unless the queue jumper is a big guy who will likely beat me up).

But, I think perhaps we can look at it in a more sympathetic way. China is a big country with a lot of people, many of which are not that well-off. Not everyone has got very good education, so not everyone cares about lining up. And because there are so many people sharing the limited resources and social security, it is a very competitive society and people must fight for themselves to get what they want. If there is only one bus every hour to take 100 people home but there are 250 people who cannot afford more expensive modes of transport and must take the bus, it is a bit hard to expect them to line up and wait for one or two hours for later busses.

But perhaps it is just a lack of manner ... because I recall people lining up to get into Shanghai Museum (I assume museum-goers are reasonably-educated) also tried to jump the line.

[anonymoose]

Well another related one is why can't people waiting to get onto the metro let people off first before they rush to get on? I mean, it's common sense, isn't it? But there's always a big bundle at the door with people sqeezing to get on, pushing those wishing to get off back into the carriage.

[Brian US]

I would say I need to brush up on my search skills, but I don't think I would have found queue jumpers with my American English like Entropy_Rising. People in Beijing are pretty good about lining up for the subway, but not so much for elevators. When you are on the ground floor and you see the elevator stop at a few floors coming down, odds are there are people coming down. Yet everyday I see people stand right in front of the door to block those getting off.

[Chinadoog]

Because a lot of people here are inconsiderate assholes. This includes those assholes who smoke on long-distance buses, yell outside in residential areas in the middle of the night, honk their horn 10 times at anything that moves, and push you out of the way to get on the bus before you.

I always go to my school's cafeteria right when it opens for lunch to avoid the lines, because there are always people cutting in line and it pisses me off. I also can't stand how people are always bumping against me/pushing me from behind while waiting in line.

Another thing - anyone else notice how some people will actually run on public buses to get a seat? Some people look so focused when they get on public buses, trying to get to the seat as fast as possible. hilarious.

/end rant

[gato]

Another thing - anyone else notice how some people will actually run on public buses to get a seat? Some people look so focused when they get on public buses, trying to get to the seat as fast as possible. hilarious.

I see kids doing that. The training starts young.

[boxcar]

But, I think perhaps we can look at it in a more sympathetic way. China is a big country with a lot of people, many of which are not that well-off. Not everyone has got very good education, so not everyone cares about lining up.

I think Skylee brings up a very good point, though I still can't see to be at all sympathetic. I don't think this type of behavior is limited to China either. I was just thinking about this the other day as I was driving around a poor part of a city in the US. Drivers were cutting me off. I noticed cars stopped in the middle of the street to talk to people while they blocked traffic. It really seems that in areas that are poorer and have a low education level, you see a big jump in selfish behavior.

[Guest realmayo]

Agree with rants above! I too reckon this annoys me dispoportiately to some of the other annoying stuff in China.

Madly stabbing at the close-doors button on the lift too, when you can clearly see someone walking towards it ... it's hard not to look down on people who behave this way, even though the rational part of my brain tries hard to find excuses for the behaviour. And basically, I don't want to look down on such a huge proportion of the citizens of China!

[jbradfor]

This bothers the heck out of me as well. Where I live people pretty much never cut in line, so I'm really not used to it. I find it takes a lot of effort when I go other places (even to big cities in the USA) to put on my "aggressive" side.

I'm not sure education is fully to blame. Going to Israel, for example, which generally has a high education level, is just as bad as China. If not worse. In China, I get the feeling that people cut in line to get what they want faster. In Israel, I get the feeling that people cut in line just for the sake of cutting in line.

[Yang Rui]

I think that, in general, it's impossible for humans to show care and consideration for *every* other human being, and so we all have cut-offs over where we stop caring. It seems that in Mainland China, that cut-off usually comes at the edge of an individual's own kinship group (i.e. friends, family, close colleagues), whereas in some other cultures it might extend to any individual within a certain physical distance of you, or, more abstractly, people who are disadvantaged in some way. Often the result of this in China seems to be that anyone who is not in your kinship group, or the subject of an immediate interaction, is not really considered - so why not just close the elevator door/rush onto the train etc. Add to this competition for scarce resources and you get all the phenomena described above. Basically, if you're in a queue/line, you're just an obstacle, not a human being.

You can pontificate on the reasons for this all day long - poverty/education/lack of a Christianity-based culture that tells us to love our neighbours and we are all equal etc etc.

It's interesting that, while lots of foreigners are shocked at the Chinese lack of regard for strangers, Chinese people are often horrified at the way foreigners can be incredibly polite and nice to strangers, but neglect (by Chinese standards) their own close family. An example of this would be someone who is constantly campaigning to alleviate poverty in the Third World, but rarely visits their own parents. I know a few people like this.

I'd also point out that, on your return to your home country, you often find that people are not quite as polite as you imagined while you were in China. Every day in the UK I sit on the train while some fellow passenger shouts on their mobile phone/eats noisily in my ear/has their music up really loud on their iPod. We NEVER queue-jump though.

Edit to add: when i worked in China, lots of my Chinese colleagues would bemoan this behaviour too. I think one of the most frustrating things about living in China can be the way in which one is forced to compromise one's own standards to get ahead e.g. i'm sure all the people who complain about ppl charging onto the train without letting people off have had to do the same thing themselves. This is one of the reasons i moved away - got frustrated at how i was sometimes forced to behave, especially on the Shanghai Metro in rush hour.

[jbradfor]

What Yang Rui describes is what I call "conservation of niceness". My theory is that everyone has a certain amount of "niceness" in them; this amount varies from person-to-person, but is on average the same in every country.

How people "use" that niceness differs.

In the USA (and I think in Europe too, but I'm less familiar with it), people spend a lot of their niceness on strangers (e.g. not jumping the queue, holding doors open), leaving less niceness to spend on family and friends (e.g. not taking them to the airport and making them take a taxi / shuttle instead). Chinese spend less on strangers, and more on friends and family. Vietnamese (in my experience, at least those in the USA -- whose backgrounds are probably affected by the fact that most / many came as refuges) spend negative amounts on strangers (i.e. are actively hostile), leaving them an excess to spend on friends and family (e.g. very willing to get into a fight for you, even when you are clearly wrong).

You heard it here first.

[Meng Lelan]

Ever been to Texas? We have line cutting on the roads instead of in queues, and it's called road rage here.

[Brian US]

There was another topic that described how you can die in the street in China without anyone caring and in the West you can die surrounded by family without anyone caring. I think one of the biggest differences is that from a young age in the West we're always told to treat others as we wish to be treated. I want others to hold the elevator and others to wait in line, so I will do the same.

[anonymoose]

I can understand people queue jumping for limited resources, but I still don't get the cramming into the metro thing. In most cases all the seats are already taken, so getting on first won't get you a seat. And getting on before others get off won't get you to your destination any quicker either. So you gain nothing personally by cramming to get on the metro before others get off, but it makes the overall process much more inconvenient, unpleasant and slower for everybody.

And then the other thing I've never understood is why some people almost kill themselves running for a free seat on the metro (usually middle aged women), yet stand up and wait by the door to get out as soon as the train leaves their penultimate stop. In the UK, most people wait until the train has almost stopped at their destination before they get up and get ready to get out.

We have line cutting on the roads instead of in queues, and it's called road rage here.

I thought road rage was the aftermath, in other words, the person behind getting out of their car and shooting the cutter-in.

[gato]

I think Skylee brings up a very good point, though I still can't see to be at all sympathetic. I don't think this type of behavior is limited to China either

No, I don't think it's because China is too crowded. Hong Kong is much more crowded than most places in mainland China, but you don't see people cutting in line there. It has more to do with general deterioration of morals in mainland China since the 1990s. Fake everything. Poisoned milk. It can't be explained away by crowding. I lived in China in the 1970s and early 1980s. I don't remember people cutting in lines all that much back then. But back then most people still believed a form of socialist ethic and self-sacrifice for the common good. That's all old history now.

[roddy]

But even those who let others off first, or queue, or hold doors open, don't apply that level of analysis. Nobody joins the end of the queue thinking 'I shall join this queue as although it will delay me slightly it is a fairer and more equitable system than the one that should ensue should I and everyone else rush to the front'. You join the queue because that's what you were taught to do and that's what everyone does.

Seriously though, things are getting better - someone's queue-jumping? Just be glad there's a queue to jump and not a solid mass of bodies. In Beijing I'd say people now tend to force their way onto the subway at the sides of the doors, allowing disembarking passengers to just about make it off through the middle. They spit into the gutter or litter bins rather than the pavement you're about to step on. They ask if they can smoke here, and when they ignore the 'sorry, no', blow the smoke away from people who are eating. Our grandchildren will visit China (assuming they can afford it) and wonder what we were complaining about.

As for the low-education argument - I don't recall there being queuing and door-holding lessons at any level of my education, but perhaps we can shift them up to day one of elementary school to make sure we catch as many drop-outs as possible.

I lived in China in the 1970s and early 1980s. I don't remember people cutting in lines all that much back then.

A perhaps relevant change is that now people are much more likely to be queuing with strangers, rather than the rest of the work unit. You're not going to cut in front of Lao Zhang and his kids, but those folk who just like they just got off the train from Hunan?

[rezaf]

If it's not an elderly or a pregnant woman feel free to shout at them “排隊好不好！” and if they don't listen tell the shopkeeper that you came first. I always solve this problem like this.

[Brian US]

I must admit that in a crowded drinking establishment I can be seen hanging over the bar waving my money to get an order in. I think this has more to do with me being short and needing a bar stool to stand on. Otherwise the bartenders never see me...

Maybe this also goes along the lines of 'the squeaky wheel gets the grease.' The person making the biggest fuss tends to get ahead.

[kongli]

I was once cut in line at a ferris wheel here. I was just about to say something to the three guys when my girlfriend noticed the look of anger on my face and said "don't say anything, this happened to a friend of mine and the guys stabbed him for making a fuss", "okay", I thought, "what's another 2 minute?".

Now I just try to make sure no one cuts in front of me and if people do I just take a deep breath and use it as a moment to cultivate my patience while simultaneously feeding my moral high horse.