(People's Daily) |
Key Words: jaywalking, road crossing, short cut, mentality, Chinese-style road crossing, rules,
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Jaywalking reflects Chinese mentality of short-cutting
Jaywalking was elegantly called "Chinese-style road crossing," which even became hot words on the Internet. People may feel uncomfortable because the behavior of breaking rules is associated with "Chinese," but such is the fact.
Chinese may have become accustomed to the Chinese-style road crossing, but foreigners are very surprised at the high degree of "freedom."
"I was surprised at jaywalking when I just came to China," a Japanese youth who had studied in China said, "There are jaywalkers in Japan, but it does not look so 'spectacular" like in China." Now, the Japanese youth has found a job in China and got used to the Chinese-style road crossing. "You will look silly if others jaywalk but you do not do so," he said.
It is not a cultural transmission to be proud of. Instead, Chinese people's lack of rule consciousness and the mentality of taking a shortcut are worrying.
Vehicles cut in line, change lanes and overtake at will on the road. The enterprises do not concentrate on research and development of products and improvement of technology, but copy and clone the originality and achievements of others, leading to all kinds of imitations both funny and annoying.
The overtaking, cutting in line and copying are tangible, but the underlying rules are intangible, which cover up people's mentality of shortcutting and cause endless troubles. An actor or actress is hard to take a role because they have to meet some special requirements besides being eligible in appearance and acting skills; enterprises bid for a project not by strengths but by "connections," making the fair competition deviating from its right track.
Someone may think that taking a shortcut can improve the personal efficiency, but it will destroy the whole social mortality, leading to rampancy of underlying rules and uselessness of the public order, and impair the interests of the public.
Time to stop appalling food waste on dining table. "Rich" is not defined by "waste".