September 17, 2007
Living in Chongqing for two years left me with the impression that I would never want to drive a car again. I often concocted wonderful fallacies about commuting to work on the subway–free to nap, catch up on my reading, or simply spend more time in my head without having to worry about traffic lights, speed limits, and fender benders.
According to several sources, Chongqing’s population rivals Shanghai in its millions and has taken the lead as the largest city in China. And yet, take a ride on the light rail in Chongqing and the cars are often nearly empty. Even at rush hour or during busy weekends, standing room is plentiful. Take a city bus and about seventy-five percent of the time you can find a seat or one will open up at the next large stop. When a bus arrives that is too crowded, the locals often wait it out optimistically for the next to arrive with less people.
But here, in Shanghai, I am frequently overwhelmed by the sea of people trying to get from point A to point B. The buses seem to come much less frequently than those in Chongqing. After waiting for ten to fifteen minutes for the next bus to arrive, a knot of impatient passengers is already poised at the edge of the curb waiting to pounce upon the next set of sliding doors. As the bus approaches from the distance the tension and expectation manifests in the craned necks and squinting eyes of the crowd. As it nears the stop, all eyes follow the front door with the burning intensity of a predator tracking its prey. When the bus finally slows to a stop, the pack quickly dissolves into a state of complete and total entropy. As each person attempts to claw his or her way to the front, it is move or be flattened.
The subway mob proves to be an even greater adversary. These are the suits and the polished heels hurrying to make deadlines, rushing to meetings with clients, or running late to the office. A mob with a purpose means, Get the f* out of the way. When being swept away with the tide of rush hour, I cannot help but think of Japan. Having only heard secondhand, I imagine the beauty of it–standing and walking sides of the escalator, tidy rows of people waiting patiently to board the next train, and most remarkably of all the order is maintained naturally without the help of referees or police officers. Compare this to Shanghai where people travel up and down the stairs describing paths of least resistance, more frequently than not leading to face-offs and standstills upon the steps. Here people cluster in front of the platform gates in tight nuclei, and the moment the gates open surge forward into the car. Those attempting to get off have a difficult if not impossible time, and if not aggressive enough they are just as likely to be pushed further into the car by the mass of incoming bodies. At some stations, subway personnel attempt to maintain some semblance of order, forcing passengers to wait in lines and keeping the gates clear. But the noise from the waves of people easily engulfs the sound of the subway personnel’s futile shouts. And the orderliness begins to disintegrate before the gates are even fully opened. At peak hours if you manage to squeeze onto the subway, your limbs are pinned to your sides as if in a vice and it is nearly impossible to breathe. Once I was unfortunate enough to be pinched between the throng of people and the door with no chance of breaking through the ranks and wedging myself further inside. So when the door opened I was caught right in the middle of the fray. I lost my footing three times in the thirty seconds or so that the door was opened. Those wanting off pushed me out of the car. Those wanting on, squeezed past me and also pushed me out. Once the skirmish had subsided I had to shove my way back on and reclaim the five square inches of floorspace that were rightfully mine.
So much for catching up on my reading.
Edit: Define irony. 6 days after I wrote this post,
this one goes up by Wangjianshuo (a very well known Chinese blogger in China). Just goes to show how different perspectives can be after you’ve spent enough time in a place.
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