PKG to HRB

It is another 2 hours or so from the Chinese Capital to the Ice City, which I discover on the plane's inflight map channel will take me 621 miles or exactly 1000 kilometres.

As the businessmen and tourists head on into Beijing or to warmer climes, my connecting flight is left with a startling array of interesting locals. The familiar but forgotten charms of the mainland Chinese come flowing back in succession.

First, there is the cheerful inability to form anything like an orderly queue. As I stand waiting to board the plane, a man nonchalantly strolls up and inserts himself in the 6-inch gap between me and the man in front.

As soon as a second door opens up for boarding, around 40 people sprint the 5 metres to the new opening and, jostling and shouting, push for the privilege of boarding the half-empty plane a few minutes quicker.

The hacking, phlegmatic cough was very much in evidence on the plane itself, and when one particularly full-bodied attempt was made in the row behind me, I flinched when the spitting came, and snapped my neck around desperately to see where the ball of phlegm had placed itself.

I have yet to see a comedy sign, such as the "Fire Cock" attached to a fire hose in school in Shanghai, or the near-legendary "No unaccompanied pyschopaths or retards" that can be found in 大众 taxis, but this could be because there is a much smaller foreign presence in Harbin. I have yet to see a white face and even the airport was entirely devoid of anyone looking even remotely Russian. I'm guessing that they probably enter the country via rail.

I even observe my first 'fight' of the trip, as a man detained for what I gather is problems with his travelling documents, becomes increasingly anxious about missing his plane. As his shouting increases in volume, interested by-standers gather around the semi-exposed staff area and rubber-neck. At one point, the irate traveller runs out of the staff room as three female airport staff chase him shouting "Stop!" and the crowd singularly fails to lift a finger in help.

The fantastic Shanghaiist.com debunks the canard that this passive crowding of events is a result of Mao-ism (because the phenomenon was evident even before his rise), and suggests a few alternatives with no definitive answer.

I'm not qualified to really offer any convincing theories of my own, but one joke that the comedian Ed Byrne made on Tuesday night comes to mind: "I'm not a fan of guns, but I think there's got to be a link between America's culture of service, and its culture of guns" as part of a riff on differences in America and England.

Well, China has a deeply ingrained culture of face (as well as a total absence of tipping in its service culture). I think the constraining power of face means people are happy to watch an argument, safe in the knowledge that it is unlikely real violence will occur. Normally, the shouting will continue until both parties are satisfied that they have said their piece and satisfied their honour. When things *do* boil over, however, then this is normally justifiably so (violence is necessary to restore face) and in this case, bystanders are unwilling to jump in and interfere with what is a necessary readjustment of status.