Two of the most important words that I have learnt during my Chinese studies have been píngjĭng (bottleneck) and tûpò (breakthrough). In the stuff that I have translated, it seems that the Chinese are always trying to break through bottleneck situations. For example, if I do a search on Google for the words píngjĭng, tûpò and jiéfàngjûn (PLA), then I can find this article, which has the headline ‘The Shenyang Military Region strives to break through the bottleneck that restricts the growth of its battle capability.’
Personally, I have never really understood the concept of breaking through bottlenecks. In my opinion, a bottleneck indicates that a large quantity of something is trying to pass through a small opening. In this context, I do not know why technological development needs to pass through a bottleneck. Surely, technological development is more like building a house – you build a good foundation and go from there. If there is something restricting the Shenyang Military Region from developing its battle capability, then isn’t that an obstacle rather than a bottleneck?
I am beginning to suspect that China’s obsession with bottlenecks is derived from it being such a populous country. In fact, I am sure that Chinese are very good at creating bottlenecks. My local subway station recently erected metal rails that are designed to shepherd people single-file into the station’s entrance. I am pretty sure that something bad must have happened for this kind of action to occur, i.e. someone was crushed when the subway became very crowded. The new metal rails may be an effective form of crowd control, but they have also created a severe bottleneck situation. Many people are now forced to line up to enter the subway station, thus wasting valuable commuting time. The subway platforms are even worse – hundreds of commuters have to exit via a single escalator.
It seems strange that in a country so conscious of breaking through bottlenecks, severe bottlenecks are occurring in Beijing’s new subway line. Perhaps it’s an unavoidable consequence of Beijing’s huge population, but I suspect that it’s a cultural thing as well. For example, traffic jams on the Third Ring Road are often worsened when cars scoot down the emergency lane and then attempt to merge back into the main lanes, thus causing another bottleneck. The bottlenecks at the subway stations could be improved if people lined up in an orderly fashion, rather than congealing into a huge mass before the small entrances that check for electronic transport cards. Chinese society as a whole seems to be a bottleneck – a huge population fighting for scarce money and resources.
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