Cui Zengqi: Looking at China and looking at the United States (Part 2) - Talking about queuing

Cui Zengqi: Looking at China and looking at the United States (Part 2) - Talking about queuing When I first arrived in the United States, I lived with my son at Glendale Arrow Head. The living environment there...

When I first arrived in the United States, I lived with my son at Arrow Head in Glendale. The living environment there was very complete. There was a big MILL not far from the door. On Sunday morning, I looked out of the window and saw only some well-dressed people lining up there. When I asked, I found out that they were waiting to eat buffets in OLD COUNTRY. Some of them were chatting and laughing cheerfully from time to time; some were reading with a book in their hands, and their casual and elegant demeanor left a wonderful impression on me. In the days that followed, I saw many Americans queuing up; in stores, restaurants, theaters, banks, and even toilets, in all areas of life, queuing was almost everywhere and very orderly. Even in places where relief food was distributed to homeless people and homeless people, when Christmas lunches were provided to people, outside shopping malls during Thanksgiving and Christmas promotions and gift-giving events, and where people received unemployment benefits, people were orderly. Queuing up in an orderly manner reflects people's upbringing and self-esteem. Some people say that Americans are so addicted to queuing that they did not forget to line up in order even when the Titanic was sinking. Americans still have many unwritten rules for queuing; when queuing, keep a certain distance between people, and physical contact and collision are not allowed; do not make loud noises when queuing; when getting on the bus, after the driver helps the disabled board the bus, people always give priority to the elderly, women and children; when withdrawing money from the bank or taking medicine at the pharmacy, the first person waiting must stand one meter away from the clerk to respect other people's privacy; in fast food restaurants such as McDonald's When there are multiple windows selling goods, people waiting in line should be arranged in a line and then assigned to each window in order, rather than waiting in the line with fewer people. This is more fair. What’s even more interesting is that at the Thanksgiving turkey distribution site, I once saw people lining up in cars, stretching for several miles. It was very spectacular, but also very orderly. In China, queues abound in life. The sight of queuing up to buy breakfast, queuing up to get on the bus, queuing up to buy in-demand commodities, queuing up to watch programs, and queuing up to buy festival train tickets has left people with unforgettable memories. Chinese queuing has a different culture than American queuing. First, there is a strong sense of "human touch". When one person queues up, relatives and friends, seven aunts and eight aunts, come and join the queue after chatting with each other for a few words. This is called "cutting three" or "jumping in line." Perhaps in order to avoid being caught in the middle, Chinese people line up almost chest to back, one after another, wishing they could touch heel to heel. The teachings of Confucius on whether men and women should be intimate or not, etiquette, etc. have already gone out of the window; sometimes, most people line up in an orderly manner, but at critical moments a few people come and squeeze in front of the line, causing chaos in the line; there are also some people with evil intentions who crowd wherever there are more people, because in the crowd Some are older girls and younger wives, and they can take advantage of the chaos to do what they want. These are all signs of uncivilized behavior. Over the past 30 years, China's economy has grown at a rapid rate of more than 10%. Unfortunately, the order of queuing has not improved much. As more people go abroad and immigrate overseas, these bad habits in queues are brought to all parts of the world, leaving a bad impact on people. The Chinese people should actually make improvements. For example, when queuing up to receive lunch at an activity center, it is stipulated that the meal should be eaten in the order of registration, within 10 minutes, and each person is guaranteed to have one. However, there are always a few people who do not follow the order and like to miss three. Or they clearly register very late and give their number to the person in front of them, thinking that this is an advantage. There are also food boxes or vegetable bread distributed in apartments, and everyone is guaranteed to have a portion, so there is no need to queue up at all. However, some people like to use stools to queue up the night before, and some even use stools to hold three people between them, causing disputes with each other. I really don’t understand the mental state of these people. Do they have an innate tendency to get ahead of themselves? Or is it the legacy of 1958’s “Strive for the Top” campaign? These practices really bring shame to the Chinese people. I have no idea when or where the human queue originated. In some movies and TV shows from the Tang and Song Dynasties, there was a scene of queuing when giving porridge to refugees. It is generally believed that queuing is a manifestation of civilization in human society, a method of rational allocation of limited resources, a reflection of fairness, and a sign of a civilized, polite and educated society. Mr. Liang Shiqiu, a famous Chinese writer, criticized the Chinese people's "queuing up" in his writings as early as the Anti-Japanese War. Why is it so difficult to break such a small habit? Some people say this is a national character, but that is not true. Poverty of materials and selfish desires lead to a rush to be first, but the great abundance of materials will make the 'queuing' disappear. Education is the foundation for improving the quality of queuing. In the United States, queuing etiquette is learned from elementary school textbooks and passed down through the behavior of parents and teachers. Most of our white-collar and well-educated people in China already have good queuing qualities. As Deng Xiaoping said, start from childhood and start with yourself. As long as our teachers and parents pay attention to educating their children and set an example, with the continuous improvement of material living standards and the continuous improvement of the cultural quality of the whole people, in no less than 20 years, our queuing will definitely catch up with the world's advanced level and become a veritable country of etiquette.

Originally, I took a few photos of crowded queues, but I thought I was afraid of hurting people’s face, so I might as well learn the standard way these puppets queue up!