Three cheers for the metro bag men
- Source: Global Times
- [10:37 June 25 2010]
- Comments
By Chris Chagnon
Like many Shanghai-landers, I greeted the revelation that all metro commuters would have their baggage screened with trepidation and exasperation.
I flashed back to the few days that I had spent in Beijing around the Olympics two years ago, and how security personnel wouldn't let me even cut from one exit to another (I had not intention of getting on the metro) without scanning my weighty hiking pack.
I thought it would end up, well, like trying to get hundreds of hungry feral cats to wait patiently in line for a saucer of milk: lots of hissing, lots of scratching with a group of bewildered volunteers huddling in a corner wondering what they had signed themselves up for.
And, you know, it almost looked like I was right. Early test runs didn't go all that well, with some personnel unclear about which baggage should be scanned, while other personnel decided to catch a few quick winks rather than bother with the agitated masses eager to burst through the turnstiles.
Things improved a bit by the time the scanners were up and running in all stations, but for weeks things were still on the brink of chaos: People cutting to the front of the line as if there was a second line and they were the only ones smart enough to see it, people getting into shouting matches with security personnel with the occasional blows being exchanged, people trying to stuff bags under their clothes to avoid the lines.
I recall one packed morning when a person was turned away by volunteers after trying to sneak past with a large computer bag. Although they pointed him to the back of the line, he instead decided to try and cut in front of me after I had been patiently waiting for five minutes to get my bag scanned. Half asleep, pre-breakfast and pre-coffee, I was in no mood to harbor cutters. I elbowed past him, forcefully, and then made sure to point out loudly, in Chinese, where the back of the line was.
He, of course, insisted that he had already gone to the back of the line (apparently a line that only he saw), and was rather upset that I was causing him to lose face in front of everyone. As we exchanged some rather, ahem, blunt words for each other, the little "I told you so" voice in the back of my head was reveling in schadenfreude. I thought exchanges like this would become a common part of the morning commute, and might even offer me the opportunity to learn some new swear words.
To my surprise though, things steadily got better. Clever and quick measures were enacted to alleviate the situation.
Many stations began roping off lines for people to stand in. At the station closest to my home, which is too open for such measures to be effective, volunteers were stationed during the morning rush to block off the front of the line and ensure that anyone who tried to skip past security went to the back.
Meanwhile, another volunteer placed all the baggage onto the machine.
Problems were cleared up immediately and the average wait to get through security was cut in half.
I'm not saying that the security isn't still a bit inconvenient and annoying, but at least now it's a relatively fair and efficient annoyance.
