Sha Lianxiang, a sociology professor with the Renmin University
of China, said that there has been a decline in the number of
people littering, spitting and flaunting traffic rules in
Beijing.
A research team of the university conducted a series of surveys
between November 2005 and 2006, in which 10,000 local residents and
1,000 foreigners who have lived in Beijing for more than two years
were questioned. In addition, it conducted observations on 230,000
people at 320 public venues and 180,000 automobiles at 86
"transport observation spots".
Sha said the "civic index" of Beijing residents scored 69.06 in
2006, 3.85 points higher than 2005. The index takes into account
the residents compliance with rules in public health and public
order, their attitudes towards strangers, etiquette in watching
sports events and willingness to contribute to the Olympic Games.
The survey found that the occurrence rates of littering in
public places has dropped from 9.1 percent in 2005 to 5.3 percent
in 2006; that of spitting has dropped by from 8.4 percent to 4.9
percent; queue-jumping dropped from 9 percent to 6 percent.
However, Sha said the citizens' "civilized degree" still could
not meet the demand of the 2008 Olympics. She expected the index to
rise to 72 to 78 during the 2008 Olympic Games.
"The government and citizens still have a lot of things to do to
improve their public behavior," Sha said.
Beijing has issued 2.8 million pamphlets about daily etiquette
to 4.3 million households and offered etiquette training to all
public servants and 870,000 people working in the service sector,
such as taxi drivers, waiters and waitresses, and bus
conductors.
The city has also established the 11th day of every month as
"voluntarily wait in line" day to rid the city of
queue-jumping.
(Xinhua News Agency February 21, 2007)