I'm standing in one of the sleek new cars of Beijing's subway line 10. It's clean and new. There's a map of the line about the door with little LED lights that tell you where we are now and videos showing game shows.
As usual, I'm reviewing Chinese vocabulary, reading my mini-dictionary. If you don't review your characters, you will forget what they look like, and you will definitely forget the tones. The simple pleasures of life.
Suddenly, something drops into my little pocket book. I look more closely. It's a fingernail. No way!
I look around to see if someone is cutting his fingernails on the train. Sure enough, about a meter away from me, standing up with his back to me, is a 30 year-old guy clipping his nails.
I guess I should retitle this blog, "A Spoiled American in China" because I am not particularly happy about this guy's nail in my book. And I am pretty sure that less that 0.0015% of the Chinese population would actually mind that he is doing it.
There's nothing I can do except what I have to do all the time in China: "adjust my attitude."
For fun, I send a text message to my American friend Michael who live in Beijing, telling him what just happened. "You're lucky you weren't yawning," he tells me.
I guess I should look on the bright side.
On my way back to my apartment, I still haven't stopped thinking about this. I happen to see my American neighbor, a hip 22-year old guy from Manhattan. I tell him about the fingernail in my book.
"That just shouldn't happen on the subway. That's gross!" he remarks. My heart leaps for joy knowing that I am not the only one who thinks that it's just not sanitary for people to cut their nails on the subway. Especially on the nice and shiny line 10. Just imagine if everybody were cutting their nails at once! Now that would be really gross. You would definitely not want to yawn and when you got home, you'd have to wipe all those fingernails out of your hair.
As I walk into the building, I decide to consult with one of the drivers of the illegal taxis (黑车) in front of my building. He's an old, weathered, friendly, guy who I've met before.
I tell him I need to consult with him about Chinese social etiquette and he says fine. I tell him about what happened. "In your country, that's not okay?" he asks.
I tell him it's not, not indoors in a subway car or other public place. He explains that for Chinese people, it's just a way to efficiently use your public transportation time. I remember that I've seen this more than once in Beijing and Shanghai. I thank him for this bit of education.
As I walk away he adds one more thing: "You just can't spit in the subway car."
Cool, I think, maybe I won't have to adjust my attitude the next time I see someone spitting on the subway.
For a taste of another Westerner (a Brit) reacting to nailclipping on subways (in the States), check this link out: http://pdberger.com/subway-etiquette/.
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Lots of foreigners complain that seemingly Chinese people lack some public morality, like spitting, no queuing, clipping nails in public, making noise during eating and talking, and littering garbage randomly etc. One of the reasons why people do those things is that for such a long time, there has been a vacuum on public morality dissemination either in Chinese formal school educational system or proper family parental influence. Not all Chinese people are OK with those phenomenon and it does be gross doing those things in public, especially when China is open herself to more and more people from different cultures that disguises these conducts. It is quite understandable you felt uncomfortable when personally encountering it, but it is part of current China, real but unpleasant.
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