American personnel steadfastly refuse to serve those cutting in line and direct them to the end of the line, while their Vietnamese counterparts often do not intervene.
With more than 20 years of living in the United States, I often find myself comparing Vietnamese and American social behaviors. And I’ve noticed that in terms of public behavior, Vietnamese seem to lag behind those in other countries, especially when it comes to etiquette in queues at supermarkets.
In the US, when I deal with line cutters, they usually apologize and the supermarket staff immediately asks them to move to the back of the line.
There have been instances where queue jumpers rushed to drop off their items at the counter, but staff still insisted they follow the order of the queue, sometimes even involving supermarket security to enforce it.
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People line up at a store in Vietnam. Photo by VnExpress/Anh Tu |
On the other hand, during my visits to Vietnam, I observed a stark contrast in the handling of similar situations. Despite my complaints to supermarket staff about the line cutting, they often took no action, processing the line cutter’s payment first.
There was a point where I vehemently expressed my frustration to staff for ignoring a cord cutter, before ultimately leaving the store without purchasing anything and deciding to never shop there again.
These experiences highlight a significant cultural difference. Returning to Vietnam often means having to compete for a place in line, unlike the orderly queue I’m used to abroad.
This makes me wonder whether the practice of supervised queuing in schools translates to orderly queuing in daily life without such supervision.
I wonder if others have had similar experiences to mine. What are your thoughts on this?
