July 27, 2014

Hangzhou, Zhejiang-Affected by Typhoon Matmo, it was raining dogs and cats outside. While I walked out of Zhejiang library at 6 pm, water had risen to knee-level in some places. The bad weather made everything hard. When I finally got to the nearby bus station, my trousers were waterlogged. Heavy weather, long queuing line, and slow traffic contributed to anxiety and impatience. So when Line 28 finally departed in and its front gate just faced me, I could see a long procession quickly gathering behind me. No sooner had we settled our position in the line, the front gate opened.

It was at that moment a bald elder man of middle size in white T-shirt, dashing all the way and humming a faint strange tone, straightly squeezed in the gate against my flank. To me such undisciplined action happened in China is “reasonable but unexpected” however beyond my reaction. But it was within the reaction of the angry couple observing the rule and waiting behind me. While the girl annoyingly complaint, “such old men always behave like this”, his boyfriend resorted his strong dissatisfaction to action: he stretched his leg; the elder queue-jumper stumbled.

What made me even more speechless was the elder queue-jumper paid no attention to others’ disaffection while just continued to shoulder into the back part of the bus hunting for a potential seat.

What greatly disappoints me is in every bus there is the “courtesy seat” reserved for old people including those who just obey this rule when it’s favorable but maltreat others when they’re not. Some said childhood is about right and wrong; adulthood is about advantages and disadvantages. Now some experienced senior citizens in our community just play it to the full in their daily life.