As regular readers of this blog know, I have been griping over the new No.5 subway line lately. There aren’t any rubbish bins, faulty travelators are a huge waste of money and there have been stoppages. To keep you updated, there still aren’t any rubbish bins, travelators are still struggling with the huge amount of passengers and trains kept stopping mid-tunnel last Monday. However, today I want to gripe about something that probably can’t be directly blamed on the city government. The thing that has been noticeable this week is the anger that erupts from the pores of passengers on the Beijing subway. Slight nudges and accidental pushes can cause vicious tisking and angry reprimands. As a daily user of the subway system, I am certainly no stranger to this palpable anger. Nothing annoys me more than queue jumpers, space invaders and backpack wearers. Here are some examples of recent happenings:
The psycho chick – Beijing has been trying to make people wait in line before they board the subway, but this has only been mildly successful. I was recently waiting in line when a young woman made a beeline for the door and pushed in front of me. It was going home time and I was combative, so I lightly put my hand on her shoulder to stop her from pushing in. At once, she turned around and loudly said "sorry". As the doors opened, I spoke Chinese and told her that I was second in line and she was pushing in. This caused her to give me a psycho stare, which only ended when I sat in another part of the carriage. I seriously regret not calling her a chŏu biãozi.
The other day, a young bloke carrying a laptop nearly knocked over a woman when he was trying to squeeze past. I think the woman must have tisked because the man angrily reprimanded the woman. I thought that his anger was a bit excessive because the woman was unaware that he was about to use brute force to squeeze past.
I nearly missed my stop because everyone standing near the door didn’t get off. As I squeezed past and tried to pull my bag out from the scrum of people, a woman wearing a red dress wailed: “Why didn’t you get ready?” She probably wasn’t talking to me in particular, but it pissed me off because she was partly to blame. If she had the foresight to move to another part of the carriage, then I wouldn’t have had to squeeze past her.
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