
Time-lapse video: How Japan handles long shopping lines - hirokitakeuchi
http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/11/23/time-lapse-video-how-japan-handles-long-shopping-lines/
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po
I've been living in Japan for a few years now and I think maybe people are
missing one of the key features of this video.

It's easy to look at a video like this and attribute it to stereotypes of the
behavior of crowds in different countries. I think the overlooked thing is
that lines in Japan are very often actively managed. If a new line opens up,
very often there is a person standing by the ropes guiding people to the new
opening in a fair way. If the ropes are too long (causing you to go back and
forth unnaturally) there is a peson there who removes them and creates a
short-cut. Similarly, they will add ropes or move the line into a better
position or manage a 'cut' in the line when it passes in front of a doorway or
path (like in the video).

This puts you at ease since you know there is an authority figure watching out
for fairness. Its no longer a "me first" attitude. It also trains people on
how to behave when in a line. When that authority figure is not there, people
still adopt the conventions of when they are.

In summary, this kind of behavior is taught and socialized into people because
it's valued. In America (where I'm from) it is considered inefficent to have a
person standing by a line telling people what to do. People are expected to
self-manage. This also means when you're waiting on a line in Japan, you're
not really thinking about the line very much. You're free to talk, read or
daydream without worrying about your place in line.

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rm999
I've never been to Japan so I may not fully understand what you mean, but
cutting in line isn't at all acceptable in the USA. The Black Friday riots
that get press attention this time of the year are an exception, and usually
involve a rare mix of retail incompetence and customer malice.

As far as managing lines of a few thousand people, I've seen many examples of
everything functioning totally fine in the USA.

~~~
zem
cutting a line, perhaps not, but think about what happens when there's a line
at a supermarket counter and suddenly the counter closes and a new one opens
up.

~~~
mguillemot
In Japan, when it happens, the new clerk usually goes in person fetch a few
first-in-line people from other lines to make the new one. That goes along the
parent's point of "you don't have to think about it, someone will do the fair
thing for you".

~~~
zem
that was what i expected from the rest of this discussion, but it's nice to
have it confirmed. in the us, whoever was lucky enough to notice where the new
line was going to open first would rush there and be the new first person in
line.

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brazzy
It certainly looks a lot more interesting from up high than from inside those
blocks of people.

But it's not really a queue, more a buffer that prevents the entrances to the
exhibition halls to be overwhelmed at opening time (with possibly lethal
consequences). There are some much more queue-like arrangements inside - I
remember rope barriers guiding people in a spiral pattern towards an escalator
representing a bottleneck.

And the once you're in the actual exhibition halls, there are streams of
people moving into various directions, but so crammed that you have to
navigate by finding the stream that eventually reaches the place you want to
go to.

Ah yes, here's some photos: <http://imgur.com/a/E6Aw6>

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jcr
In the TFA is linked the Japanese version:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwfZZG4Q_FE>

There is also an Enlgish version: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ermNqkUUiJw>

The caption of the English version gives some useful details on how the video
was created:

    
    
      The footage, which was compiled from photographs taken at
      intervals of 5 seconds, was filmed on the last day of
      Comiket from around1:30 AM to 2:30 PM from the balcony of
      the nearby Washington Hotel.

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tomjen3
That is not really handling long lines -- that is people standing nicely in
queues.

What would be interesting would be to compare how long these people stood in
line to how long they would stand in western systems. Given that western
people are famously impatient (and that shopping centers know this), I am
guessing that ours are better optimized.

But, yeah, its a strange feeling looking down on all those humans -- almost as
if you were looking at a bunch of really well trained sheep.

~~~
mbubb
Asians are just as impatient - I am not sure what your frame of reference is.
I am no expert but lived and worked in Asia for 3 yrs.

When things are properly organized here lines work fine.

This is an interesting subject for me. I am mildly agorophobic and happen to
live in the most densely populated part of the US.

For the weeks after the recent East Coast hurricane, the NY Waterways (NYC
ferry) has done a great job of managing brutally long commute lines. NJ
Transit does not. As a result I am paying double what I would for the bus or
subway.

Trader Joe's (in NYC) does a great job of managing lines that snake though the
entire store. On Saturday morning shopping runs the end of the line is
literally right inside the door. Yet I have never seen a fight on line...

Last year I went to a football game (Dallas @ NYJets on 9/11). I do not go to
games often. The whole queueing up was horrible experience. Crowded on 'cattle
car' trains to get to the station which then pour out into a crossing for a
highway like ring road around the stadium.

Security with guns and dogs all around and no clear directions about where to
go. It put me in a terrible frame of mind. I felt like something rotten could
happen at any moment... And this was only a crowed of 75 - 80 thousand people.

Nothing actually happened, I had a minor freakout and got over it. But I
deeply hated the experience.

That night I felt like an animal (and payed over $200- per ticket for the
privledge ).

So no tomjen3 I do not think those people look like sheep. They look human.

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seanmcdirmid
Wow, the stereotypes are flying today.

Brits (westerners for crying out loud) are famously patient, I think they
invented queuing but someone who knows better could correct me. The USA is
also quite good, we seem to respect lines well enough.

Asians are also hard to stereotype, Japanese are also famously patient and
orderly, it would be very hard to put them in the same bucket as say Chinese,
the queuing cultures are just completely different. Try a Chinese train
station just before Chinese New Year. I believe they just fill a (huge) square
of people and somehow they manage to filter in somehow, I have no idea how
they do that!

~~~
mdda
George Mikes (1912-1987) - Hungarian writer : "An Englishman, even if he is
alone, forms an orderly queue of one".

~~~
coolestuk
We Brits are profoundly discombobulated when we visit a country like Germany,
famed for its order and regulations about crossing roads, only to find that
the English word "queue" got mis-translated as "free for all".

~~~
codewright
Queue is a French word dating back to the 15th century.

Colloquial English usage didn't arise until the middle of the 19th century.

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dhughes
I like at the end some sort of busker thing going on.

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lampe
i think this is a very cool system and why western lines are better? i dont
get this? or was this sarcastic? i would wish that more people her would be so
patient like they are!

and i dont stand in lines i order it on the internet ;)

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Evbn
Looks like a line for a ride at Disney World, or cars at ferry terminal.

Don't like the chauvinism in the title. It is one location in Japan, not "how
Japan does it".

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veidr
OK, you are right, but this really is how Japan does it. See po's answers
above for more background.

