In China, it is very common for people to cut in lines. I went from Shanghai to Yellow Mountain for the weekend and I had people try to cut in line at least five times including buying train tickets, the train bathroom, and buying tickets for the cable car on the mountain.

When I first moved to China I was very confused and bewildered by this extremely rude behavior. Now I have learned the Chinese words “paidui” which means to line up. I no longer let people cut in front of me. I tell them paidui and mostly they will back down.

The passive aggressive thing that I occasionally will do is what I call the “physical paidui”. It goes like this; if the person cuts the line then they must not be able to see me so I go along with it and pretend not to see them. Last weekend coming back from Yellow Mountain I was lined up to board the subway in Shanghai. As the doors open some guy tries to cut the line from the outside. We both entered the subway car at the same time but I maintained my course as if he wasn't there. As we both entered, this guy got jammed up between me and the subway door for a few seconds. He started hollering a bit then so I let off the pressure. After that I wasn't sure if he knew it was intentional or not but he glared at me for a while.