To be or not to be impolite? Of course, not to be; this is China

To be or not to be impolite?
 Of course, not to be; this is China


The warmth of Chinese people is like sunshine on a cold day. I am always gratified when someone goes out of their way to help me. But this too often is the exception rather than the rule when it comes to dealing with Chinese people. Impoliteness and the lack of common courtesy are another common trait in China and in which the Chinese differ from other peoples in the rest of the world. If China had a set of watchwords, chaos would be one of them.

No where is this better manifested than in the behaviour of many Chinese when it comes to queues. Many Chinese people either do not understand the concept of a queue, or more likely, they do understand but are too rude and selfish to respect queues. At supermarket check out counters, bank teller windows, and train station ticket offices, there are always a few assholes who will go straight to the front of the line and push you out of the way so they can be served first. To the novice, the crush at bus stops as animals push to try to get on the bus is beyond belief. Bag straps are burst, glasses are knocked off faces and there is the occasional physical injury. But still it continues.

Chaos is also ever present on the street as taxi drivers maneuver, ignoring lanes and weaving like fish in a net. Everyday I go to work, there is at least one accident on the street, and I myself have been involved in three although I do not drive. Chinese drivers also possess the annoying habit of constantly blowing their horns, till it seems like a terrible orchestra assails your ears constantly from 7am to 7pm. And what effect does blowing horns in the midst of gridlock have? Can it really make you go faster than an inch a minute when everyone else is also trying to move forward regardless of everyone else? But TIC: this is China, where simple solutions like allowing others to go first and clear the way for you to go are passed over in favour of the more complex ones, full of frustration- me first for everyone- that waste incredible amounts of time.

Even when you patronize businesses and are a customer, you are still served up with rudeness. When I used to work as a supermarket cashier in London, I always greeted those who came to my till, then thanked them when they handed me money, then wished them goodbye as they left. Customer service is terrible in China. When you go into the bank, the teller doesn’t look at you, far less acknowledge you with a friendly “Hello”. Instead she keeps looking at her computer like if the computer is the customer she is serving. Hellos, Thank you and goodbyes are non-existent. Supermarket cashiers are similar; they don’t even hand you your change but drop it on the counter for you to pick up.

At first I tolerated all this. Then I had this incident in Xiamen. I wanted to buy a train ticket to Guangzhou so I joined with other people in the queue. When it was my turn, a man pushed in front of me, saying, “'Help me, help me.” After having waited in line for half an hour, I was obviously going to help myself first. The ticket seller criticized the man, telling him to go to the back of the queue but he insisted and shoved his money under the window. So she sold him his ticket. Then when it was my turn, she checked her computer, told me her shift was up, and to join another line. I had to wait an additional 45 minutes in line to buy my ticket and was so annoyed, I texted my wife and told her this was the last straw- after I finished teaching that term, we were leaving China.

There was another incident that I always think of when I think maybe I can live in China. My parents came to visit us and when we arrived at the train station, a woman hassled us to take her taxi. The Chinese think one thing about a person: how can I use him or her? Foreigners are a magnet because the Chinese all think we have money. I refused the woman because I don’t like hustlers. My wife said she wanted to overcharge us on the taxi fare because she saw foreigners and thought money. So this taxi driver started shouting abuses at my wife as the inevitable crowd of Chinese with nothing to do gathered, even though this was at 4am. Later, because my Chinese was poor, my wife told me she was saying over and over “F*** your mother. Look, a Chinese helping the foreigner. You sleep with all the foreigners in town. F*** your mother.” My wife was never so humiliated before in her entire life!

The Chinese are very selfish and this is what has lead to their impoliteness and inability to treat others like humans. My Chinese father-in-law told me many Chinese people are bad mannered because China has too many people. Everybody is struggling to make a living so people look out for themselves mostly. Like many rats in a very small box, each fighting for food and space. Which I think is a poor excuse. You may be competing with many others but you’re not an animal.

I read on a website that the selfishness has to do with the group structure of relationships in China. In the West, there is individualism and individual rights. So you’d think this would lead to more selfishness than the group structure where everyone cares for everyone else. But it has the opposite effect. In the West, you recognize the person next to you as being an individual like you and therefore, entitled to the same rights as you, so you show your fellow man equal consideration.

In the group structure, you are part of a group so if you advance, then the whole group advances. Despite your being selfish and advancing at the expense of your fellow man, because you have advanced, the whole group has advanced. So selfishness and non-consideration of others is okay.

Yet, how people can live with this behaviour (and the rest-spitting, littering, the chaotic way of life with no order...you know what I'm talking about if you've been here long enough) as to stick around here in China for 10 and 11 years, I don’t know.