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Q: Why do Chinese people sprint to the escalator and then stop once they're on?
They'll knock down an old lady to get onto the escalator ahead of others and then just stand on it and block the way.
It's called a rush! A feeling of excitement when you will be first in line or when you get to be ahead of other people. It's just a rush! I get it sometimes too and i get chills behind my back everytime I do become the first in line...I get all giddy inside!! 
He he, I said: 'giddy"!!
TedDBayer:
More proof that you are Chinese, obsessed with being first in line.
We used to do the same when we were in primary school, and visiting the city. Just to be the first. It was an exciting game for small children. 
They need a rest from all that running they have just done don't they?
They have yet to learn that using public facilities comes together with common. They always block the rolling carpets at Carrefour by standing side by side, or putting their carts right in the middle of the way. You are trying to be quick because you are late for work? As soon as the elevator's doors open on the ground floor, you can't get out because they try to get in first and you are taken back to the 47th floor.
If only more authorities could teach them that this is how you use an escalator:
I often ask the same question with regards to getting off the subway or getting on/off a bus. I often shout out sarcastically in Chinese "quick! first one on gets a prize!"
Everybody, I'll some it up in a few quick words, idiotically uncultured, moronic, uncouth, inbreeding, arrogant sh*t heads, but hey, they pay me so I guess I can look past that.
I agree with techezee totally... In fact I have seen them run when the gate for the plane opens ! Why do it ? Don't they realise that everyone will and has a seat ? I also always wait until the last possible moment to board ... I can't be doing with the 'farm yard' behaviour when it is just not needed.
To add a few words to the mix... they are all as mad as cheese !
Maybe it's a race to get behind the best pair of legs, mini skirt or tight hot pants on the way up. 
GuilinRaf:
My girlfriend still has not figured out why I like to stand a few steps below her when going up the escalator...
What REALLY gets to me is, you are part of a moving crowd leaving a building or subway station, etc. and at the door, suddenly it is "clogged". Takes forever to get out. The problem? Not only are an equal amount of people trying to get in, but every single female leaving the building, be she young or old, will stop, look at the sunlight , open her umbrella (which needs to be dug out of her purse) open it and THEN continue walking. Then the next girl does this, and the next and the next.
As if the 7.32 seconds of walking in the sunlight while they open their umbrellas would kill them....
markpracy:
Yes, its the fashion in China, white skin, get no sun on the body whatsoever, even for a few seconds, even after coming out of a deep dark winter for 4 months.
Maybe they think they will be, or look like the "Migrant Workers or Farmers, with there naturally tanned skin tone..
Look down on the poor dark skinned, hard working souls in this country, its not right pilgrime!
It's all about being in front of YOU. After they take position in front of you they slow down because then they exist only to stand in YOUR way. Seems like a fun game, though I've never played.
No, no, no. It's because they're being chased by invisible samurai.
It could be the fact that if you are not specifically known to them, then you are just background noise and don't really exist in their world.
If the escalator breaks down, would they be stuck in it until either rescued or it's working again?
Because it's a non-queuing culture that constantly just moves forward. They'll even cut in line. It's a different mindset of personal space and how to flow. I'm sure they stand on the escalator for the same reason most Westerners do: to avoid climbing stairs, which is why there's an escalator in the first place.
Yeah, and dont forget the lift, runing to the lift and getting in, even if its full, or is overloaded as a service lift, take it anyway!
Never consider waiting for the next one for a few seconds, and exercising a little courtesy and manners, doesnt matter,squeeze in anyway, as if its the last lift off the planet!
Culture and Tradition, it is hard to break a 5000 year rule of idiotacracy, I think when they made the movie, "lame movie", they had China in mind.
markpracy:
Thats right pilgrime, one word to describe this Culture and mindset: "Incomprehensible" !!
It all happenned billions of years ago when their DNA came out on an asteroid that crashed onto the planet..... and the common phrase: "From another planet"
I will be leaving the "Planet of the Chinese" at the end of the year after a 4 year stretch, and tour of duty in Nanjing, the lovely "Summer oven club of China"! Crazy friggin place!
Yes when I get back to NZ, I will rip all my clothes off and go screaming into the sea with joy!!
because it's all about me, me and me
This is just another example like q-jumping, pushing & shoving, parking and driving crazily as if you are king of the road
Chinese sometimes show sympathy (schools collect money for earthquake victims) but empathy is not common
but given the history of colonial humiliation, opium wars, warlords, Japanese invasion, civil war, communist collectivization, Great Leap Forward, mass starvation, Cultural Revolution, Gang of Four, Great Firewall, dissident and Falun Gong suppression etc. etc etc.
would you be sane?
Maybe they are trying to get out of China and they think the escalator, lift or subway is the start of the exodus?
I do feel sorry for the sparrows however when Mao declared war on the four pests
After 4 years of bad manners, rudeness, spitting, public urination and a botched broken ankle, I'm so glad to be back over the rainbow in Oz
