I am almost always frustrated by the apparent lack of organization in the São Paulo subway and on escalators in general. How can a city of sixteen million people not follow the simple stand-on-right/pass-on-left rule. I've complained about this to many paulistanos, and they tell me more or less the same thing. Even though they are paulistanos, and given to stress and hurry, they are still Brazilians, and thus, not given to organization. I reject this reasoning, since I think it represents a form of "brazil is backwards" ressentiment. In fact there does seem to be a right/left-stand/pass structure. The problem is about 60% of the people ignore it and just stand on the escalator on either side, and about 40% of people become horribly resigned to wait.
Today, however, I experienced a ray of light to this situation. An opening if you will. As I was going down the excalator into the subway, there was a couple in their twenties not doing much of anything but blocking anyone from passing them. A small women, also in her late twenties and wearing sunglasses, said to the girl on the left: "moça, vc não quer permitir as pessoas passarem?" <Hey girl, don't you want to let people get past you?> So, the translation is rough. In reality, you have to hear the intonation (which I tried to register with the question mark) to get that this statement is typically Brazilian. Sort of aggressive (almost rude) in its directness but said in such a sing-song way as to sound quite sweet. In fact, the girl in the couple was kind of surprised that someone would make this request, but quickly stepped over to the right, where her boyfriend was. The girl in the sunglasses quickly shot past them, and I followed the girl in sunglasses. When I got to the bottom of the excalator, I looked back up. The couple returned to their original positions, and the person who had been behind me was patiently waiting to get by.
So, change is a long time coming. But if I have the chutzpah, I am going to try this move in the future.
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ReplyDeleteFunny you wrote about this since I was today just noticing, with some surprise, the opposite on the Linha Amarela: the flow of the crowd was managed quite well by cordon and police officers, and almost everyone was respecting the stand-right rule! The bright future is perhaps closer than we think...?
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