Shanghai’s subway consists of 14(correct of writing)
different lines operating approximately between 6 in the morning to 11 at
night.
The Subway is the most common method of travel, as it is in
most major cities. The price of the ticket is 3RMB –7RMB depending on how far
you travel which is incredibly cheap.
The subway is the heartbeat of the city. The planners have
obviously seen this and since my arrival 4 months ago, we’ve seen the
introduction of lines 12, 13 and 16. These additions make me feel weathered and
old in the city.
Trains may arrive when they say they will, conditions may be
clean, their convenience may be unparalleled yet this is a list about things that
can tick you off on Shanghai’s subway.
10. The Subway map mentality
As mentioned the Subway is a cheap and convenient way to
travel which correspondingly leads you to use it on countless occasions. In
turn you develop the subway map of Shanghai in your mind. Evaluating how far
something is by the number of stops which pretty much always makes you think
that walking a whole stop is far too far when in reality it is 10 minutes tops.
9. The river
I’ve experienced this a few times. If you are standing by
the doors of a busy exiting stop, you get hit by an river of people leaving the
train. Naturally you are taken with them and dumped down stream outside the
train. Its quite extroadinary.
Quite the scrum sometimes.
8. The sing-song
It’s the sound that a beggar/mother and child asking for
money is/are approaching. When you hear this noise the whole vibe of the train
changes. The music isn’t joyous and with little else to look at or anywhere to
go, you are left feeling rather glum if your pockets aren’t deep enough that day.
7. The change
A change of line at a station often involves a small trek as
the lines are built so far apart. That’s all.
6. Train termination
This is annoying because most of the time it is
unexplainable. It happens sometimes when you are travelling out in the
outskirts and then quite suddenly the intercom will go and everyone empties the
train. A guard comes on and checks up and down the train. The train has no
doors between each carriage so two glances and he can check any length of
train. The seemingly fine train moves out from the platform leaving its
previous passengers standing out in the cold at this unbeknown station waiting
for the next train to come.
*Shanghai Railway station is a bad one for this. Post Rush
hour, sometimes up to 2 out of 3 trains will terminate at the station negating
the 10 other stops north of it on line 1. The most crammed I’ve ever been on a
train has come from these 3 sets of passengers all getting into one train.
Thankfully I only had to go one stop further!
5. Bag checkers
At every station before you go through the gates, there are
a couple of Station staff employed to check your bag. One urges you to put your
bag, which is usually filled with work material, onto a conveyor to have an
x-ray. The other employer is there to look at the x-ray screen. To this day
I’ve seen no one held up.
I can use the subway up to 5-6 times a day so having to do
this for every trip is hugely monotonous. At least half of locals completely
ignore the first steward.
I go through stages, the poor lad has an near impossible
task of getting the stream of commuters in a rush to get their briefcases
checked so I put my bag in out of pity and to obey the rules, but other times,
I walk straight on through.
4. Rush hour
The things that above all else make travelling so strenuous
on the mind are the people. Between 7:45-9 and 4:30-6:30, the Subway is crammed
as a great mass contest their own path through the cities Rush Hour. It is in
these moments where you truly feel very small.
3. The plant
I’m a different animal underground. I walk a lot quicker
almost like I have a propeller behind me. So it is to my utmost annoyance when
I get faced with a plant.
You are chasing a train having power walked the change from
Line 1 and half way up or down the elevator when a inconsiderate couple or
misplaced body is planted in the walking zone of the elevator. Momentum stops
and the propeller comes off me as I’m stuck behind the plant until I reach the
bottom/top.
2. The confrontation
The one I’d been warned about and the one where measures
have been taken at each station to prevent it but to no avail.
As you pull into your final destination and the doors are
about to open to let you off, the confrontation occurs. There opposite you
outside the train door window is not a clear pathway to the exit but a group of
anxious looking commuters waiting to get on. As the door hutch opens, defying
logic both streams will hit each other. Common sense says the outside should
stand and wait to free up more room in the carriage as well as showing just a
tad bit of courtesy. Alas the benefit of grabbing a train seat often outweighs
simple manners thus causing the confrontation. It’s a brutal world sometimes.
Tactical approach. Often ignored!
and finally 1. The push
There are crunch moments in travel, which in an ideal world
you will always make. The sliding doors moment. If a train traveller in a queue
for a train deems that their journey might be momentarily delayed by the
sliding doors they will in survival mode push their fellow traveller in front.
A natural response perhaps. But the reality is that the person in front can not
go any faster unless he wants to cause some kind of pandemonium so the push
that they receive comes as quite an unwelcome surprise.
What makes matters worse is that upon entering the crammed
train you then have to get up close and personal with this pusher as they
position the back of their head an inch from your face.
It’s this moment where with my superior height I look at
myself in the train window, crammed in, 8am in the morning and repeatedly tell
yourself that you are lucky to be out here working in China!
No comments:
Post a Comment