Hosting the Olympic Games means doing a lot more than
building a few stadiums and subway lines, as Beijing has found
out.
Keen to present its best face to the world during the
prestigious sporting event, the city is racing against time to
improve the behavior of local residents.
Citywide campaigns are under way to curb Beijing residents' bad
habits such as queue-jumping, littering, using foul language and
spitting in public.
"Hosting the Olympics is not only about building grand
stadiums," said Zheng Mojie, deputy director of Beijing's Capital
Ethics Development Office, the official etiquette watchdog.
"As tens of thousands of foreign visitors are expected to flood
into China next summer, both China's positive and negative sides
will be amplified. So we must change those bad local habits," she
added.
Millions of brochures were sent out to individuals to introduce
a new code of conduct, while polishing courses are being offered to
all civil servants and the people working in the service sector,
such as cab drivers, shopping assistants, waiters and waitresses,
and bus conductors.
The 11th of each month has been instituted as "Queuing Day",
because the date symbolizes an orderly line, when residents are
told to stand in line to catch public transportation. In addition,
people caught spitting in public face fines of up to 50 yuan
(6.60U.S. dollars) and rude manners when watching sports
competitions may incur a detention.
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"We are happy that much progress is being made and our work has
begun to pay off," Zheng told Xinhua.
A survey released by the Renmin University of China 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.
"We expect the index to further rise for this year when the 2007
report is released," Zheng said.
However, the "civic index" still fails to meet the standard
required for the 2008 Olympics, according to Sha Lianxiang, a
professor at the Department of Sociology, Renmin University.
Zheng admitted that it's an arduous mission to raise the level
of civility of the whole society.
"There's a saying that it takes three generations' time to bring
up a noble, so I cannot guarantee that impolite behavior will not
be spotted in the city when the Olympics take place next August,"
she said.
"Our goal is to rebuild the majority people to be
civilized."
(Xinhua News Agency December 20, 2007)