I am from Nanjing, and just got to Shanghai for work. The school I'm working at is quite a nice place, with friendly teachers and, you bet, lovely children. However, the school is situated a bit too deep into Pudong New Area (I would like to call it District, but bus broadcast has it the odd way...), and I have to endure long time of public transportation to get to the downtown area, where, according to a foreign colleague of mine, is not the 'real' Shanghai :P
Public transportation in the big Chinese cities are almost always busy, and I feel rather safe pushing this prejudice over to the IfGoGo readership. The so-called shock came to me when I witnessed three incidents in a row: not offering seats to the old, skipping the queue, and not offering seats to a woman with her baby. For sure, it is just coincidence that I met such incidences at this high frequency, and in Shanghai there are indeed many good-ordered taxi queues, but this day in Shanghai still makes me uncomfortable. Skipping the queue is quite common in China (I saw the taxi queues first so this still comes as a shock); not offering seats to the needed is against basic Chinese culture and morality... But I may be too quick to condemn these people, or Shanghai in general. Even if these are all acceptable behaviour in Shanghai, it might just be evolution of the ethics, and I am a bit slow to catch up. However, I'd rather believe that today's incidents are lone cases, and Shanghai is still as beautiful as she should be.
Well, it might be even worse in Beijing - you could imagine that!
Chinese people are too tired - they are overstrained under a very stupid system - people are not earning more as they over worked for nights - they don't know how to protect themselves against the brainwashing dominance.
They're not tired, and they're not even in a hurried. They're just not civilized, like barbarians.
People were not born barbarians, they were distorted and brainwashed.
Keep going south, till you get to Hong Kong. Don't complain about non-civilized citizens until you cross the border.
I don't agree that they don't offer the seats to needed because of "not-civilized". In my point, the reasons of not offering the seats maybe is they really feel tired or they are sky of offering the seats in public.
Well, I agree with Aw and Bobo that people are too tired to be generous. (Work is hard in Shanghai, and tranportation is even harder. I took line 8 every day to work and it is hell!) And I guess another reason might be that resources are too limited in China, therefore people are thinking about "taking" rather than "giving" most of the time. You know, it's hard to be generous on something you seldom have!
BTW, interesting blogsphere!
Actually, this Monday a colleague of mine (American) talked about how he ceased to offer seats any more, because it is impossible to make sure that the old woman or the pregnant woman would actually get the seat. Someone more physically capable would almost always race for the open seat!
haha it takes some techniques! Basically I would half leave the seat (or stand up but leave my bag on the seat if the person stand a little further) and at the same time speak to the person I plan to offer to, then people around you would know you are not just leaving but trying to give the seat to someone. According to my experience, people seldom rush to the seat after such a clear indication or gesture.