The Train Station

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People are pushy in Shanghai, and niceties involving waiting in line don’t really exist.  We were at a self-service ticket machine at the main train station in town, and I was the second person in line.  There was really just one dude at the machine in front of me, and no one behind me even.  Then suddenly a pack of locals who knew each other just walked up to the machine from the side of the row of kiosks, and from beside me through the other roped aisle, and then there were five people in front of me, and they used the machine before me.

 

I didn’t really care because (a) I wasn’t buying a ticket, my friends were, and (b) it was the wrong machine anyway.

 

So we found the right place to buy tickets in a building about 200 yards away, and we found the English speaking service center as well.  SAS people were filling up the line right to the front, and in the middle of a transaction, when some local guy just starts busting his way through the line.  I mean, literally pushing people aside and running down the middle of the aisle, just going gangbusters on us.  The two people at the front of the line were fortunately able to stop him, which is good because they had already put some money in and he had money in his hand that he was trying to throw down on the table to say that it was his turn.  When they stopped him he just laughed, as if it were funny, but my friends did the best they could to let him know it wasn’t funny, and he should chill when someone is actually in the process of buying a ticket.