Escalator madness

The 新闻晨报（Shanghai Morning Post) – part of the Liberation Daily's media group – had a little snippet in today's "Great Britain" section that made me laugh.


It was merely a tiny paragraph in a news round up, although how it constituted news I'm not really sure, but the journalist that wrote it seemed to find the fact that Brits only stand on one side an escalator, leaving the left hand side free for people in a rush to walk up, indicative of British sensibilities.

For someone who takes great pleasure in watching the Chinese, who often seem to be in great rushes, speed walking up until the point they get on an escalator and then stand and wait while they trundle towards the bottom, I thought this was possibly the greatest little news snippet ever.

Of course, the "British" way of riding escalators is also used in Taiwan (although they may stand on the left and leave the right free). So maybe it's not necessarily a British thing and more of a nationalist/colonial thing.