02.28.09
China and Mitch Hedberg…It’s Gotta be the Face.
The late, great comedian/philosopher Mitch Hedberg once quipped:
An escalator can never break: It can only become stairs. You would never see an “Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order” sign, just “Escalator Temporarily Stairs.” Sorry for the convenience.
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| An immobile Chinese escalator…aka stairs. |
The funny thing is that in China most escalators are in fact…stairs. However, this is not necessarily because poor construction causes them to break down frequently. Rather it’s due to the Chinese tendency to err on the side over overbearing fiscal responsibility when it comes to electricity.
Yesterday, as I was passing an immobile escalator in a Shanghai suburb, I made a comment about the escalator/stairs to my Chinese assistant. Her immediate reply was “Duh, the elevators are built for face.”
Without being overly ethnocentric, it’s difficult to asses the use of funds to finance a value (face) which is virtually valueless in one’s own culture. However, one has to wonder at what point spending money on face is deemed less important than spending on projects of a more functional value, such as say…electric devices which will actually be turned on from time to time.
For more insight from 老Mitch click here.
Nicki
said,
February 28, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Similar to the swimming pool at the college I used to teach in: built, filled, photographed for the brochures, immediately drained and allowed to fill with muck.
Oh, and by the way, the caption on your picture there says elevator but should say escalator.
Don Tai
said,
March 1, 2009 at 1:46 am
I totally agree with your assistant that it is all about face. I’ve been to small towns where they have 2 streets and one intersection, and at this intersection will be the town’s only traffic light. This traffic light is turned off, and though there is a platform and an umbrella for a policeman, no such authority is ever seen. Escalators are the same. If there is some big wig expected in town, they’ll turn on the traffic light or escalator, and a couple hours later turn it off again.
The photo you posted has sandbags protecting the stairs and escalator. Is there some risk of flooding in this area? Maybe they turned off the escalator because they were expecting a flood, which would short out the electrics?
Anqi Dai
said,
March 2, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Ben,
Shanghai’s Mag-Lav Train is the only commercial lavitation train in the world. But it is losing several billion RMB(bank interests and maintenance) a year and it is still running. It probably could run the entire escalators in the country with that much money.
Benjamin Ross
said,
March 2, 2009 at 3:51 pm
@ Don Tai
The photo was taken in Qingdao, and the escalator goes to an underground shopping center about 100 feet from the ocean. I guess the sandbags were to prevent a possible flood from a storm or rising tides, although one would think that would probably be something considered before building an escalator (not to mention a friggin’ underground shopping center) 100 feet from the coast. Nice stairs though.
@ Anqi Dai
I actually rode the Maglev train for the first time 2 weeks ago when I first got into Shanghai. It’s a pretty amazing train (fast, comfortable, and smooth) but since it only goes to Pudong, you still have to take a taxi, or switch subway lines multiple times to actually get anywhere, which in effect makes it much less useful than if it actually crossed over to the other side of the river. I guess if you’re a businessman and just doing business in Pudong, it’s probably nice, but for someone like me (and presumably most travelers to Shanghai) who are going to a destination in Puxi, it is only negligibly faster than just getting a cab from the airport. Nonetheless, I still like the idea of putting mega-bucks into high speed rail infrastructure. Anything to get more of these damn cars off the road.
Peter
said,
March 7, 2009 at 1:00 am
When I was in Nanning (Guangxi) and Guangzhou last September I saw a lot of these stairs as well. Your explanation makes sense now but only partially.
This is something about China and “face” that I have never understood. In America, at least, the owner of the property would lose much more face by having a broken escalator than if they just had stairs there. It’s not like a handicapped person can ride the escalator.
The whole idea of how face is calculated always trips me up. How is it that in China it’s seen as better to have a broken escalator than a simple, working stair case?
Peter
Benjamin Ross
said,
March 7, 2009 at 1:24 am
@Peter
You need to look deeper into the wisdom of the great, knowledgeable Mitch. The beauty of an escalator is that it CAN’T break….it can only become stairs.