Day-to-day habits are changing quickly in China - and so are many underlying perceptions

----By Kathleen Lau

When you've been in China as long as I have, you begin to appreciate the word "progress" - especially in Shanghai. Think of how many times you've said, "It'll take years for them to get [fill in the blank]," and then, voilà, it's changed overnight and you wondered why you ever thought it would take so long.

Take crossing the street. Not long ago, the going norm was to go through red lights if there were no police around. Then the traffic monitors appeared. At first there was a lot of arguing (not me), some ignoring (okay, that was me) and many attempts to dart across when they were looking the other way. But their high-pitched shouting and incessant whistling soon had the crowds standing still, and after a while people tolerated being told not only to wait but to step back up on the kerb as well.

The next time you cross the street at night, after the monitors have gone, notice the people: They now wait for the light. That is progress.

Small steps ...

Okay, so maybe altered street-crossing habits with the help of monitors 24/7 might not be a good example of speedy progress. After all, if someone stood at your elbows and forced you take off your shoes whenever you entered a home, you'd change your habits soon enough and without much effort.

But I knew things were changing for the better after a workout at my gym, where the lockers so narrow it's impossible to change if anyone is using the next one over. And as luck would have it, one day I had a locker with ladies on both sides.

Damn, I thought, how can I possibly change into my gym clothes with their elbows jamming in from both sides? At that exact moment, the girl on my left scooped up her things and moved away to finish getting dress a few paces away. She left her space to accommodate me!

This simple gesture of thoughtfulness would have been normal in other places. But in the 12 years I've lived in China, I'd become accustomed to being pushed, elbowed and shoved without so much as an "ahem", so having someone not only move aside but inconvenience herself got my attention. I stole a glance and saw that she was in her early 20s. In the States when people ask about changes in Shanghai, I say it's the younger generation that's changing.

But then my driver surprised me by doing something out of character. Mr Zhong, who is in his 50s, is one of those long-time drivers who earned their licence when there were a lot fewer cars around. He came to work for me last year and proved to be one of the most dangerous drivers the road.

He would back up on a busy thoroughfare if he missed his turn. He would slow down to read house numbers or signs, even on the expressway. No matter how much I complained, he couldn't break the habit of blocking traffic and double-parking even when there was plenty of room to pull over. "I want to get you closer to the door," he'd say.

"Here's a new rule," I'd say. "Traffic safety is more important than accommodating me!" I bugged him to put on his seatbelt but I knew he took it off as soon as I was out of sight. One day he was caught by a policeman and fined RMB200. That was the only way he changed that habit.

For over a year we were locked in a battle over driving styles. Then last month, in the midst of rush hour traffic on Nanjing Lu, he made a right on red and saw an old woman looking to cross on the WALK signal. I felt him hesitate beside me. In that split-second he had to choose between stopping for the woman and driving through. I felt him wanting to go, and yet with a brief sidelong glance at me, he stopped. A victory, however small.

... and giant leaps These examples seem insignificant, petty even. To me, it was precisely because they were trivial that they seem important. In the banal lie the shifts in day-to-day habits and thinking across generations.

And when the big victories come, they are mammoth.

A key staff member told me over coffee one day, "I used to think that there was only one way to do something. But after working here for some time, I see that maybe that's not always the case. That time when you insisted on making a change, and I thought it was impossible. But then the change was made and I realised that it could be done and it was okay to do it. Now I see that sometimes it is possible and it is okay to be flexible."

Her victory is not a change in habit. It is a shift in perception. I've heard of the Chinese saying, "It is easier to move a mountain than change oneself." If that is the case, then the Chinese are truly moving mountains.

© Copyright 2008 by Kathleen Lau. No part of this may be reprinted - in any language or format: printed, electronic or otherwise - without express written permission from the author.