By SHELTON BUMGARNER
Marmot’s Hole Guest Blogger
I don’t know about you, but the whole “line issue” vis-a-vis the new Disneyland in Hong Kong is just wicked interesting to me.
There are, in fact, cultural differences in how people behave while in line, according to social scientists and park designers. Those differences have even led to physical changes in so-called queuing areas at some parks.
Rongrong Zhou, an assistant professor of marketing at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said the differences went beyond a Hong Kong-mainland split. Ms. Zhou, who has studied the psychology of queuing in Hong Kong, although not at theme parks, said there was a tendency among Asians and others in more collective cultures to compare their situation with those around them. This may make it more likely that they will remain in a line even if it is excessively long.
[...]
By contrast, she said, Americans and others in more individualistic societies make fewer “social comparisons” of this sort. They don’t necessarily feel better that more people are behind them, but feel bad if too many people are in front of them. Lines in these cultures tend to be more self-limiting.
Koreans seem to have no problem queuing up for buses or anything else. I just wish I could teach them to stop slamming into me on the subway without even a look.
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8 Comments
With that headline I thought you were going to be talking about Kate Moss and her now infamous lines of cocaine. But the cultural psychology of standing in lines was actually pretty interesting.
You’d think this would be talking about the general Chinese tendency to skip the whole line-forming thing and apply their glorious meritocratic system of whichever person can apply more superhuman pressure to get to the front of the line.
Though I’d be curious to see if they can compete with the psi of an ajumma.
They’ve got so much force they challenge the law of physics that states one solid object cannot pass through another.
i layed down one the most glorious pre-emptive strikes yet at a korean subway station yesterday. subtle and elegant.
the flanker maneuver is quite often practiced in areas with a lot of people waiting to go into or onto something. the most reprehensible is the individual flanker at the banks. i remember when kookmin started their partnership with the korean lottery. it literally took ten times as long as normal to get any business done.
I remember last time I was in Korea in 2002, they were having public service commercial about how Koreans needed to start obeying lines since a lot of Europeans were going to be coming in country and they didn’t want Korea to get a bad reputation. I was taking a lot of public transportation each day, and I remember noticing a difference when waiting for the train guide to open the gate and punch tickets….well….kind of a difference. A long line would form, and I would usually be maybe 30 yards behind it waiting for the guy to start. And after about a 15 mintue wait, when he would open the gate and start punching, ………. 100 more people who had been sitting watching one of the TVs around would come attacking both flanks and pushing their way to the guy……….I guess public service announcements can’t reach everybody.
The only time it really got on my nerves in Korea was when I was waiting for a taxi and needed to get somewhere. I didn’t have a problem if the taxi area had bars to keep the line in order. But in the places where there was no clearly marked area, there wasn’t much of a point waiting patiently behind people who were there first, because too many people were more than willing to grab the next taxi as soon as they got near the corner…
Queue jumping is a sport practiced by both sexes and all ages in China; aiyi and shifu beat ajummah any day. The worst experience I had with massive pushing and shoving was a city bus near Qingdao, China. As soon as the bus rolled up, people mobbed to both doors like they were fleeing the Titantic. I was crushed on all sides and somehow swept up with the masses onto the bus. The buses ran regularly and it wasn’t the last bus of the day, either. Another annoying species of queue jumper is the “I’m more important than you” bank customer who ignores the lines, stands at the side of a teller counter and tries to slip his banking business through the window between customers.
Speaking of lines, I’m glad I’m not in the gridlocked interstates outside of Houston. I’d much rather hold the fort here in the northwest part…
Rita needs to hurry up. I’m bored off my ass and stuck inside the house. I actually I wish I was back at the university macking on the ladies.
Mentionning Kookmin and lines reminded me my last banking operation in Korea before leaving [ie, fleeing with my hard-earned booty]. I was in a pretty bad mood already, fueled by a horrible mindless ajumma who *yelled* on the phone details of her banking business nobody really cared about. By the time I had straightened her out, my number was called, and since I was closing all accounts and [trying to] send money abroad, proceedings were kind of slow ? despite the relative efficiency of the lady taking care of it. My Kookmin agency last year looked more like immigration booths, with a yellow privacy line and all. My wife and I had enough vital space and privacy to discuss business with the bank teller, an unusual occurence. Suddenly below my left elbow a hand carrying bank books and shit appeared, depositing them on top of the assortment of documentation we had spread out.
The fact she’s still alive is a sign that 11 years in Korea didn’t strip me from all my humanity. And yes, I tried “nice” first. But people, either because they think they are old enough, or because foreigners don’t really count, or both, don’t listen when asked ? politely ? to fuck off. So I had to go Enola Gay on her.
Have you ever seen a bank agency utterly quiet? I mean, with 100+ pax in it? Like it was frozen in time, X-Men-style? That woman never, ever cut in line again, I’m pretty sure of it. And she prolly never came back to this agency.
Bottom line is: they’ll always try something slightly illegal/improper with the hope they won’t get caught, and try to wiggle out of it when confronted. Being nice just doesn’t work.
dda,
That is what the US have to do against mannerless NKs. Go Enola Gay on them.
Be careful about Ajummas. They gained enormous power since you left the country. If you try to the same thing again, all Ajummas in the bank will gang up on you for hurting one of them. It is like fighting a pack of wolves.
These Ajummas have cheating husbands, every one of them! And, they are suicidal. Stay out of their path, if you want to live long.