We sure loved having a Disneyland only 20 minutes down the road. This is one of the things the girls mention that they miss from living in Shanghai. Amongst all of the craziness of moving we were able to squeeze in one last day at Disneyland.
Erica demonstrating her technique for preventing line-cutting. She did really pull out the splits when needed. Who would have though gymnastics lessons could be so helpful? It's not without reason - if you leave a gap you have about a 75% chance of the people behind you cutting in front. I used to place my arm out across the line when people behind were trying to sneak past - which they always hated. David would move to stand directly in front of them and continuously block their path - they hated that even more. The interesting thing about the line cutting is that many Chinese people also seem to hate it and consider it poor social behaviour. However, in my two years in China I only saw one argument between Chinese people regarding line cutting. Most seem to not confront the behaviour. I developed a different approach of zero tolerance, where if the perpetrator didn't do the right thing, I had no problem calling over the line attendant. I was sure at some point somebody would spit on me, or there would be some sort of repercussion, but not so far (perhaps helped by usually being accompanied by a man who is much bigger than your average Asian person).
There are many theories for why line-cutting occurs so much in China. I'm not sure what is accurate. Some theories point to traits developed over time as a result of the county's experiences with the cultural revolution. My tutor told me that in the major cities there have been campaigns about not pushing-in line, and other behaviours. Her feeling is that most of the line-cutting is by people who aren't from these major cities, and this is why you see so much of it in tourist-heavy places such as Disneyland.
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