Stress 3: Manners
I just saw this bizarre Shanghai courtesy campaign video on Shanghaiist.
It shows a well heeled Shanghai where people queue up without ever pushing in. It is a city where strangers display acts of selfless kindness to each other such as helping to find the correct recycling bin while you are wearing your best business clothes.
The rough and tumble of everyday Shanghai life makes many of these scenarios quite unlikely, but I would not go as far as Kenneth Tan in saying that these clips are creepy. However, wouldn’t Shanghai be a more pleasant place to live if it was the social norm for everyone to be polite? When I first arrived in Shanghai, witnessing queue cutting, change being thrown back at you and elbowing out the opposition were all part of the fun of living in this amazing, packed city. Then you live here a while and realise that it can be really quite irritating. Unless you are totally self sacrificing, you eventually learn to accept this as part of the Shanghai way of life that you have to participate in. Otherwise, you can spend your whole life waiting for taxis that other people jump in.
It’s a such paradox of living in Shanghai. Individually, nearly everyone you meet is peaceful and good natured and there is very little violent crime. Put the same folks in a crowded metro car at 6pm and it’s Lord of the Flies for space and seats. I remember listening to one Chinesepod where they said it’s the Chinese custom to be polite to family and friends and to be indifferent to strangers. Another view I have also heard is that politeness was derided as being bourgeois during the Cultural Revolution. Whatever has happened in the past, we are where we are today and a footnote in a history book does little to help you when you someone barges in front of you at Lawsons. Everyday abrupt behaviour still makes it into my list of factors that make Shanghai somewhat stressful.
Getting back to the video. Would the reailisation of this dream make Shanghai as bland as Joy Division without Ian Curtis? Shanghai would probably lose some of its edge, although having a polite culture has not harmed Hong Kong or Tokyo. Not all of the scenarios were that outrageous in any case. Sometimes, people hold the lift door open for you to enter. Jenny looked at the video and thought it was not unheard of for people to go out of their way to help children and the elderly, but she said that people would not like strangers moving their bags around in the overhead luggage compartment for fear that their stuff might be stolen. The video did little to remind you that we are living in a city with more than twenty million people who are competing for limited space and resources.
This BMG video might have a twee and sentimental view about Shanghai’s future as a centre of politeness, but its picture is not as false as you might like to imagine. Although, letting people take your taxi is something that is not going to happen for a long time.
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