A brief lesson on personal space

The man under the yellow arrow has been to China before, the couple under the red arrow have not. This photo was taken in the Bangkok Airport; notice the difference in space between the Asian customers waiting in line and the North Americans. This is one of the cultural differences I notice the most in China... my definition of closing in the gaps is WAY different than the average Asian. Partially, there's a reason for the lack of gaps. I'll explain.

This last week I actually went to the Post Office for the first time; the majority of the packages that are sent my way wind up in my building, this particular one did not. I'd heard stories about Chinese Post Offices and was pretty curious to see if the rumors were true. Chinese people aren't real big on lines, they prefer mass groups of people pushing towards their desired goal (see my post on Chinese fire drills a while back), so when they can they don't have them. My first move when I walk in is to get in line, of course. I find the desired window ("Package Claim") and wait behind the man currently being helped. As I'm standing there, a Chinese man walks up in front of me and hands his slip to the man behind the counter, and I remember like Doc Brown, "where we're going, we don't need lines"... or something like that. Basically if you leave a gap, somebody else fills it in for you.

I continue to wait (though sometimes, admittedly, I do it the Chinese way--I won't this time) and an older man pulls up "in line" behind me. You can tell though he's struggling with the idea. He keeps creeping up, peeking his head around my shoulder. I wait patiently and when my time comes, a nice little "line" has formed behind me, creeping and peeking, waiting for the foreigner to finish so they can push to the front. There's a push from the government, too, to start forming lines. One of my favorite things around are a series of posters in subways and on buses and whatnot, urging people: "Please be civilized, the Olympics are coming." I'll try to get a picture of one sometime; they show people doing just that, waiting in lines at an ATM, standing on the right of an escalator, walking on the left, and crossing the street at crosswalks. Funny stuff.

I got my package no problem, and like always, I get a brief lesson on personal space. Hope the picture helps to give you one as well.

(Special thanks to my pal Susie for unknowingly allowing me to borrow her picture, arrows and the like.)