'Me First' mentality has to go

It's 8 on a cold Sunday morning, and I'm standing at the bus stop near my apartment. Not far from me is a crowd of ordinary Chinese, each one already jockeying for position to be the first to board.

When the bus does heave to the kerb, they surge forward as a mob, in a mad rush. Elbows and shopping bags are used with pinpoint precision to prevent anyone else from getting on before them.

And so I stand back, and wait for another bus, in the hope that the same situation won't arise next time.

Call me an old-fashioned fool, but when I was growing up, people queued for buses, and helped the elderly and infirm to board. Students even gave up their seats for adults. It was seen as a mark of how responsible we were as a member of civilized society.

Public transport is just the tip of the iceberg that is the "Me First" problem. Hands up if you've taken a taxi recently? Right, now keep them up if the driver was more inclined to use the horn than the brake pedal...

The "Me First" mentality seems to make it impossible for road users to grasp simple courtesies that make sharing the streets safer. Bicycles weave in and out of traffic, vehicles treat indicators as optional extras, and the noise of horns blaring further inflames tempers!

Crossing the road has become my favorite "extreme sport". I wait until the little green man appears, look both ways, and hope that drivers stop at the lights. It seems that even a red light isn't enough of a signal for some drivers these days, as they race along at a speed well in excess of the posted limit, so that they can gain those few extra meters that the "Me First" mentality seems to demand.

Even attempting to buy lunch in a restaurant causes "Me First" to come to the fore. I have lost track of the number of times the person with the loudest voice and most aggressive attitude has been served first, even if they were last to walk through the door. I tend to find myself looking for extremely empty restaurants to eat in, or having lunch at odd hours, just to ensure that I can order the things I want.

The "Me First" mentality, I'm told, goes back to a time when food and goods were in short supply. In China today, that is hardly the case.

Foreigners such as myself find this "Me First" problem to be rude and boorish. It has led me to abandon making purchases on many occasions, simply because of the aggressive nature of other customers.

My Christmas shopping was abruptly curtailed in a major supermarket recently when I wheeled my trolley toward a checkout, which, at first glance, had no one waiting in the queue.

I was wrong. A woman leapt in front of me with an empty basket, and stood there, as if this was a perfectly natural thing to do. The cashier made no attempt to serve me, and I wondered what was going on... Until her friend surfaced with two bottles of drink, and compounded the problem by paying with a credit card.

The "Me First" mentality that drove them to do such a thing drove me to leave the shopping trolley where it stood, and go home. Ok, so my Chinese is limited, and it takes me a little longer to complete a transaction... Would it kill you to stop trying to compete, and just wait your turn?

If China is to take its place as a major player in world diplomacy, perhaps it's time for her people to lose the "Me First" mindset in favor of a "We're All In This Together" one.

Stuart Beaton is a teacher in Tianjin. You can contact him at rastous@hotmail.com