I was dropping by my local FamilyMart store for some cool drink in the upcoming Shanghai heat, queued up in front of the cash registers to wait for my turn, and was surely passed by some local Chinese with a small bottle and 3 Yuan in his hands, trying to short-cut me and being served first, holding his bottle to the shop assistant for scanning. Well…I am so used to it by now that I didn’t bother much. I was only thinking if I could collect enough Chinese words to give that guy some kind of address to think about on his way… I couldn’t come up with anything.

The revolution caught me off guard: The young lady behind the counter was saying something I couldn’t understand, but her guestures were obvious: It’s me first, the one waiting longer in the queue! Wow…I kept being speachless! That passing-by guy was so stunned, too, that he didn’t say anything either, but figured that he might have a chance at the other cash register and turned around.

You might want to re-read this text to assess the above small story’s importance 😉