Excerpt
I’ve just got off an Air China flight from Nanjing to Beijing. It was a smooth flight. The only inconveniences were the usual fellow passengers occasionally clearing their throats noisily and spitting into the motion sickness bags.
Getting off the flight involved a scrum of elbows as passengers in the back of the flight tried to beat the ones in front out of the door.
All in all, a smooth experience _ and it got me to thinking.
Here is what you don’t see in China: You don’t see enraged passengers reaching across airline counters and shaking fingers at quivering airline employees. You don’t see people drinking way too much on flights and making scenes. In other words, you don’t see behavior that goes beyond boorish to the realms of freakish and even dangerous.
In China, I never look around and hope there’s an air marshal nearby.
I got an email from a reader in Massachusetts recently voicing surprise at the lack of road rage in China. It’s true. There’s plenty of muttering among drivers, and an occasional shout. But I never see drivers, pedestrians or cyclists really lose it. Just about everywhere else outside of Asia, I’ve seen that.
This excerpt has been pre-approved by the China Secret Police
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