OLYMPICS/ News
China expects "intangible legacy" from Olympics
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-10-04 11:04
Dubbed the "Ms. Manners" of the Beijing Games, Zhang Huiguang is racing against time to improve the city's decorum. She and her team use daily TV commercials, newspaper cartoons and street posters to try to change the ingrained habits of the 15 million people living in and around the city.
"Promoting civilized behavior among Chinese travelers and residents is a long-term task. For the Games, we need to focus our resources on the main problems," Zhang says, citing spitting, queue-jumping, swearing and smoking as the four "new pests" against the "four pests" of rats, flies, mosquitoes and sparrows during Mao's era.
One measure to "eliminate the four new pests" is the "promote queuing" campaign, which was launched in February 2007, and is held on the 11th day of each month as "11" has come to symbolize "one after one".
Uniformed queuing inspectors, waving flags, appear at bus stops and subway stations on "queuing day" to ensure people line up. The traditional swarming mobs at the doors of trains and buses are less common these days.
"In March, we focused on bus stops and subway stations. In April, we focused on hospitals," says Zhang. "We gave flowers to patients standing in line to show our appreciation for their good behavior."
Beijing has also issued 2.8 million pamphlets about daily etiquette to local households and offered polishing courses to all civil servants and 870,000 people working in the service sector, such as cab drivers, waiters and waitresses, and bus conductors.
"Sentences like 'No means no, it doesn't need an explanation' and 'We can't help you. Go ask someone else' are strictly prohibited," says Zhao Guiling, a 36-year-old cab driver.
Yao Kuo, vice-director of the municipal transport management bureau, says his bureau has devised a 12-point evaluation chart for taxi drivers, which includes no smoking while driving, no overcharging, no spitting and no littering.
"Cab drivers must remember that their service is a window on China's capital, and they contribute powerfully to the city's image," Yao says.
Progress is being made. A survey released by Renmin University of China at the end of January found that in 2006, 4.95 percent of people still spat, down by 3.5 percentage points from 2005.
From November 2005 to November 2006, the poll covered 10,000 local residents and 1,000 foreigners who had lived in Beijing for more than two years. The survey team also gathered observations from 230,000 people at 320 public venues and 180,000 automobiles.
The survey revealed that the occurrence of littering in public had dropped from 9.1 percent in 2005 to 5.3 percent in 2006 and queue-jumping dropped from 9 percent to 6 percent.
The "civic index" of Beijing residents scored 69.06 in 2006, 3.85 points higher than 2005. The index takes into account public compliance with rules in public health and public order, attitudes towards strangers, etiquette in watching sports events and willingness to contribute to the Olympic Games.
However, the "civic index" still fails to meet the standard required for the 2008 Olympics, says Sha Lianxiang, professor of the Department of Sociology, Renmin University. She expected the index to rise to 72 to 78 during the Games.
"On the one hand, we are developing and making progress now, while on the other, we still have many problems. Raising public etiquette and civility is not something we can do in one or two months, or even one or two years," she says.
Zhang Faqiang, vice-chairman of the China Olympic Committee, agrees. "We are still away from meeting the standards of a really civilized Olympic Games, so we will continue to do important work on this."
"The Olympics is an opportunity to learn, but this is not just for the Olympics. We are trying to get the public to be more civilized in the long run. Ultimately, China's modernization rests on the quality of its citizens."
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