China has never been a patient, wait-in-line kind of place.
The history of the vast and populous nation is a tale of chaos repeatedly triumphing over calm, order over disorder. On many occasions -- the Boxer Rebellion, the Cultural Revolution, the subway each day at rush hour -- things have degenerated into mob rule.
But that, Shu Xiaofeng swears, was the old China.
The director of the Capital Ethic Development office (sometimes called Beijing's Spiritual Civilization Construction Commission) fully believes it's possible to persuade residents of this city of 17.5 million that there's no need to push or shove, that even those at the end of the line will eventually get the same thing as those who fight their way to the front of it.
Every month, on the 11th -- a date chosen because of the two straight 1s -- Shu oversees Queuing Day in Beijing. This week his department deployed some 4,500 orange-vested volunteers, who set out at 7 a.m. to keep stern watch over this city's 2,000-odd subway stops and bus stations. Their mission: to teach Beijingers that good things -- like seats on the bus -- do come to those who wait.
"It looks like a small thing, but considering that it affects 14 million people (the number who use Beijing's transit system) a day, it's a big thing," Shu explained. "It relates to the order of the city, to the living environment of the city."
Indeed, the crush to get on the subway at rush hour is somewhere between a rugby scrum and a mosh pit in its nature as people who are generally polite and deferential suddenly declare war on each other over seating space. The elderly and the diminutive are given no special treatment in the push to get aboard before the doors slam shut.
An earlier campaign to get Beijingers to line up and wait their turn was launched in 2007 as part of a wider effort to improve public behavior ahead of last summer's Olympic Games. A fresh "100-day" campaign kicked off anew in June, this time targeted at getting the capital to act its best for the Oct. 1 National Day, which will mark the 60th anniversary of the Communist Revolution and the founding of the People's Republic of China.
Other, for now secondary, goals of Shu's office include persuading Beijingers not to litter or spit in public, the latter being something of a national sport. Another targeted habit is the Beijing male's summertime tendency to roll his shirt up to his chest to cool off his belly.
Shu said the campaigns are working. A survey taken last month found that 85 percent of those subway stops and bus stations where Queuing Day volunteers were deployed had lineups. The bad news, however, was that only 30 percent lined up of their own accord in the stations where there were no volunteers.
"China is still a developing country, and there is a process to becoming civilized," Shu explained earnestly. "Compared to Sweden or Switzerland or Europe, we do have some ways to go. One reason is that China has too many people."
His volunteers, however, sense the gains being made.
"When people see me in this uniform, they voluntarily stand in line without me needing to tell them," said Wang Ruiting, a 49-year-old volunteer wearing a red sash that read, "Welcome the National Day. Behave civilly. Build a new atmosphere."
A train pulled into the subway station as Wang spoke and she eagerly demonstrated her new authority. "Keep the door clear! Let people off the train first!" she barked as the crowd obediently waited. She watched contentedly as people started to file on, then intervened with her arm to prevent any pushing and shoving as the doors started to close.
"Sometimes people try to get on after the bell rings," she confided afterward. "I block them with my body, but sometimes they don't understand that I'm doing this for them and complain that I'm making them late."
The efforts, however, appear to have wide public support. A study by Renmin University of China found that, across the city, there has been a drop-off in not only queue-jumping, but spitting, littering and shirt rolling. A "civilization index" calculated by the university rated the behavior of Beijingers at 82.68 out of 100 last year, up from 65.21 when the index was first done in 2005.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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