MARK OF HONOUR: Japanese queueing up for the train. – Filepic

As the announcer states, giving way to other motorists would at most delay our journeys by an average 40 seconds. In the overall scheme of things, waiting 40 seconds does not really cause us much harm and can in fact reduce our stress levels.

This is already the practice among residents in most developed countries that we Malaysians keep on aspiring to emulate, but fail to actually follow in both thought and spirit. It’s no wonder then that we keep hearing the constant refrain of ‘world class facilities, but third class mentality’ being applied to ourselves!

This rude practice also extends to how we supposedly queue up at various points. How many times have you seen commuters actually queueing up to board a bus, train or the LRT?

Granted that the public transport system needs major improvement, but a quick look at how things are done in Japan will put many of us to shame.

The crowd of commuters there waiting to board the trains are far more than what we have in Malaysia.

Yet, the overall situation in Japan’s train stations is far less chaotic – because the passengers actually make it a point to stay in their queues. This is because the Japanese see it as a mark of politeness and honour to stay in the queue – as only uncouth barbarians would shove and push their way forward while others have been waiting patiently.

From this viewpoint, we Malaysians definitely have a long way to go before we can be seen as being refined and having a world class mentality.

Even when some actually make an effort to form queues, it only takes one errant person skipping forward to trigger off a chaotic situation as the herd mentality kicks in.

This behaviour is especially galling as our schoolchildren actually keep to their queues in schools, but their parents often tell them to do otherwise in public.

Is this how we want to perpetuate this poor image of a rude Malaysian into the next generation?

Maybe it’s time for concerned individuals to take the first step of setting virtuous examples for others to follow. Since many of us now use cellphones fitted with cameras, it would be interesting to see how many images of rude Malaysians cutting queues can then be seen at various blogsites.

Michael Wong
Rawang