Because Chinese People Are Too Many

We had an interesting experience riding the bus yesterday. Riding the bus in Beijing is always an experience. There are almost always more people on the bus than there are seats. Often times there are more people that want to get on the bus than there is space on the bus. Because of this, when a bus arrives at a bus stop and opens it doors, the people trying to push and shove there way on the bus is reminiscent of when you are at the lake and you throw a piece of bread in the water at the spot where the carp are jumping on top of each other in an effort to eat the bit of bread. What makes us sit back and laugh is when 15 people act out this very scene at the open door of an empty bus that has 40 seats. "Just slow down," my wife shouts to the flopping carp every time we witness it.

The craziest part of this phenomenon for us foreigners is not that people are pushing each other to get on the bus - we are Americans, we understand selfishness. What blows my mind each time is that they never get mad at each other. Everyone accepts it as part of the rat race and deals with it. My wife...not as much.

Yesterday we saw 2 fights on one bus ride, one was verbal and the other was physical, but both involved the same lady. This was very unusual for China. We see fights every once in a while but usually not over bus conflicts. The verbal fight was over an empty seat and the man wanted it and the lady didn’t want to give it to him, she wanted to give it to someone else. In the end the man took it anyway, but the lady did not get out of his way. The physical fight was between this same lady and another man. It was difficult to understand exactly what was going on. It looked like he wanted to get off the bus and she would not let him. I guess they were together? Alcohol? Mental illness? I’m not sure what caused the fight. It was happening at the stop where we were getting off. We passed by her and got off the bus while the skirmish continued as the bus pulled away.

The fight was not the surprising part, I’ve seen many fights before and I understand people getting angry. What was shocking to us was that as this lady was (pardon the anti-pun) manhandling this guy, she and he were falling all over the two young ladies sitting next to the abused man. They said nothing to her and did very little to get out of her way. I was shocked that they didn’t rise up and join the fracas.

When I ask Chinese people why things like this don’t bother them as much as they bother me their answer is always the same - “因为中国人多” (because Chinese people are too many). The Chinese people tell me that they complain inside their own heads, but they never do anything about it because there are a lot of people in China. This, I have found, is a fundamental difference between my culture and theirs. As an American, it is written into our DNA that when we don’t like what is going on, we do something about it (for examples see the Occupy Movement, Martin Luther King, Women’s Suffrage, the founding of our nation, etc.). As a Chinese person, it is written into their DNA to just accept it (for examples see the blockage of Facebook and Twitter, the one child policy, the license plate lottery in Beijing, etc.). The Chinese don’t all follow this culturally accepted norm. Some have voiced complaints (last time it didn’t go so well for them), but for the most part they toe the company line and realize that even if they did want to implement change, there are just to many people in China and something about holding back the tide. I, however, as an American sometimes see it as my duty to show them the “better way”. As I do so, I am only shouting my naivete, and my Americanness.