Bad manners cheapen the quality of all our lives
- Source: Global Times
- [21:13 September 05 2010]
- Comments
By Christopher Williams
Imagine a young couple walks together to a restaurant for dinner. As they approach the door to the restaurant, another couple is just exiting. The man from outside pushes his way past the couple that is leaving, without a word of acknowledgement or pardon, then lets the closing door swing shut into the face of his sweetheart as he lights a cigarette and looks for an open table.
The waitress appears. She asks how many are in the party. He says two, scanning the room but never looking her in the eye. The waitress guides him to a table which he takes, sitting down first, not offering his seat, and not saying even the most perfunctory thank you to the waitress.
I have seen many variations of this scenario with my own eyes hundreds of times here in China. I see it increasingly with what I might call the "younger" generation, which loosely means anyone younger than myself, usually too young to have children of their own.
But really it happens with all ages and it worries and depresses me.
I can't exactly say I was raised to be polite in my dealings with others, because I can't recall more than a few instances from my childhood where I was in any way instructed on the finer points of good manners or etiquette.
But I do know that it's instinctive and automatic for me to say "please" and "thank you" and "excuse me" in virtually every social situation in which I'm interacting with another, and this is true whether I know the person in question or not.
Gestures like these ought to be at the heart of what we call "civilization." I remember there was once a syndicated column in the US called "Miss Manners," in which each week a reader would submit a particular social dilemma and Miss Manners would help set it right.
How many gifts to bring for a child's birthday party? What is the polite way to refuse a date from a co-worker? If a couple is arguing loudly in a public place, is it right to get involved?
Some of the finer points were funny and involved elaborate, almost legalistic resort to a lengthy list of protocols developed over the ages, but the larger point was actually quite serious and even sweet in an old-fashioned way.
How we treat others matters, even if they are strangers and we'll never meet again. We must always endeavor to be courteous, respectful and sensitive in all the complex situations we'll be exposed to in life, and we ought to expect to be treated the same way in a civilized world.
I am not seeing enough of that in my world. People push and shove in front of me in line, pretending I don't exist. I've been bumped, kicked and jostled a hundred times, never with any pardon, and in my homeland this would be cause enough for fisticuffs.
