When Ex-Communists Meet Mickey

Oh Good GOD.

DISNEY.

Things looked so good when we checked into our Disneyland hotel.  The hotel is really, really NICE.  And CLEAN.  Two things we no longer take for granted at this point in the trip.  (Tickets and hotel were a gift from my parents because no way I would pay this much for Disney).

I had high hopes of just avoiding the princesses as much as possible and letting the kids enjoy the rides.  (My main problem with Disney involves the princesses, their stupid storylines and the way they are marketed to little girls.  Without the damn princesses, Disney probably wouldn’t bother me much at all.)

And then we went to the park.

Before I go on, let me interject here that I am a student of culture.  I actually enjoy the uncomfortableness of bumping into the boundaries that divide my midwestern American culture and other cultures.  Experiencing another culture on its’ own terms is part of what makes me love travel so very much…or so I thought.

That was before “bumping into the boundaries” involved actual bumping into bodies — Hundreds and hundreds of bodies — while we stand in long queues for rides and as adults and children alike push, shove and line jump their way ahead of people who have the nerve to follow the rules and stand in line.

Let me back up and mention that Hong Kong Disneyland is actually not full of people from Hong Kong.  It is full of about a million mainland Chinese.  Say what you will about the British occupation of Hong Kong, but the leftover impact of British rule in three areas  made our time in Hong Kong unbelievably pleasant: No public smoking, No hawking and creating a culture where people are happily able to wait their turn and stand in line.

You know what mainland Chinese do not do? Stand in line.  You know what else they don’t do?  Wait their turn.

Those forty years of screwy Chinese Communist Party shenanigans that left millions of people starving to death under enforced rationing and communal kitchens did not encourage mainland Chinese to develop a culture of patient line-waiting.  Back in the day, if you didn’t take what was yours, you were likely left with nothing.

I get that.  I can rationally understand it.

At the same time, when a mother, child and two grandparents try to push ahead of dozens of people (including small children!) waiting in between metal barriers to get a slightly better position in line when we are ALL waiting in line for the same damn thing?  Well, 35 years of living in a culture that values politeness, turn taking and most of all PERSONAL SPACE, I can only blame my response on instinct.

What response might that be, you may be wondering?  My instinctual response is yelling “HEY!” or “STOP!” or “We are ALL WAITING FOR THE SAME THING!” or “GET IN LINE!” and blocking the  line cutters by putting my hand on the railing.   Mr. A favors body checking people or elbowing them without making any eye contact or saying anything.  Each method is relatively effective, though I will say that having a foreigner say something loudly about someone’s behavior seems to be somewhat shame inducing and slightly more effective than Mr. A’s method.

So far, in our half day outing, the following line problems occurred:

1) Getting on the shuttle from the Hotel to the park there was a near fistfight between two people on the bus.  We didn’t see what happened at the beginning, but based on the situation it looked like one guy (and family) cut into the front of the line either when boarding the bus or shoved people out of the way on the bus so he could get to the seat he wanted.  He was removed from the bus to prevent the other man who was screaming at him from coming to blows.

2) There was an adult woman and her mother (no kids) behind us in line for the Dumbo ride.  Their preferred method of line-waiting was to continually press against my back and Mr. A’s back.  And I mean CONSTANTLY.  I can acknowledge they were clearly annoyed with us because we would not crowd up on the family in front of us and left (gasp!) almost three whole feet of personal space unoccupied by bodies.  At one point the older lady tried to shove me forward into the space when the line moved forward and I finally turned around and said “Stop pushing!” At that point, they only leaned on Mr. A constantly.  When I was behind him, they would back up a little.  They also spent a bit of time whispering about Americans, but I didn’t care because at least they weren’t touching me.  Finally, a disneyland employee actually yelled at the women to stop pushing (through no intervention by us) and they backed off a little.

3) When I was standing in line waiting for food, the signage was unclear about which direction the line should go.  This wouldn’t have been too much of a problem if there were not SIX adults who may or may not have been in the same party in a huge scrum arguing and trying to order.  They kept moving back and forth and were creating a chaotic scene when other people walked up and everyone was getting confused and frustrated.  A disney employee had to come break up the mess and physically hold back the people who were pissed because the confusion had lead to two different lines of people who were thought they were in the correct line.  Based on the way he handled the situation, I am convinced a large part of his job is actually stopping fights about line cutting.

4) In the line for a 3-D movie, we were standing right in front of the turnstile waiting for permission to go in as the next group.  A teenage boy shoved his way past about 100 waiting people and tried to cut right in front of me by pushing L out of the way.  I said “HEY!  We are IN LINE!  Wait your TURN!”  He turned red and said “Oh, Sorry!” but stayed right there trying to inch his way in.  Then they let us into the pre-movie holding area which was nothing but a stampede starting line.  When the movie theater doors opened, no joke, about 300 people RAN in to grab seats -shoving people left and right.  There was a lady who was pushing on Mr. A really hard so he stopped short and put his elbow out.  She smacked right into him and almost lost a kidney.  I was at his other side and two older women tried to push me aside as I was heading into a row of seats so I stopped and blocked their path with my hand.  They struggled trying to push me out of the way for a second before they changed course to a second row.

5) In the Its A Small World line, which wasn’t even crowded, we had to file through long lines of empty metal rows.  Everyone was walking very quickly, but a woman, her 10 year old kid and her two ELDERLY PARENTS tried to sprint around us and line jump.  By this point the the  day  was getting pretty fed up so put my arms out and said “STOP!” when they tried to push past me at a corner.  They were SHOCKED and stopped short.  Then we all walked in a more orderly fashion toward the standing part of the line.

6) At the Teacup ride a family of four elbowed their way past about 20 people behind us and tried to push past us to get a better place in line.  I body checked the dad and refused to move despite several more attempt to get by us.

7) Waiting to take pictures with Tinkerbell, there were parents who took their probably 6 year old kid past the 200 people waiting in line and lifted her over the rope.  They kept trying to get her to dart up to Tinkerbell between legitimate waiters so they could take her picture.  They kid clearly didn’t want to and knew she wasn’t supposed to be there.  She wandered around for about 5 rounds of other people’s pictures with her parents trying to get her to run up to Tinkerbell before I finally told an employee that she was line cutting and he kindly booted her out.

In every line we were in, people farther up in line were holding places for people who were not in line yet.  WAaaaay up in line.  People had no qualms about shoving their way past everyone in line to get to their friends/ family.  There was one family who had adults in several lines and took the kids from one line to the next so the kids never waited for more than a couple minutes.

So let me say it again: YES. This is a cultural difference.  But OH MY GOD it is such an ANNOYING one.

The 8 incidents above are only the BIG ones.  I haven’t really even touched on the people who bum-rush the characters through the exit gates, stampede as soon as a timed event gate opens and RUN from one ride to another (we are talking ADULTS here, not kids or teenagers) knocking into anyone who happens to be walking on the paths.

It is an experience, that is for sure.

Edited to add: While we found HK Disney to be a bit difficult, at least it wasn’t as bad as THIS EXPERIENCE. Seriously, when I read this I laughed so hard I was crying.