Metro Faux Pas

This morning on the metro I realized that on a daily basis, I experience a series of emotions in a matter of minutes during my commute to work.  I live near the Santa Lucia metro stop and only go 5 stops away to Pedro de Valdivia (it's around an 8 to 10 minute trip), but in those 8 to 10 minutes, I often go from panic, to rage, to sympathy to relief and then back to rage.  Here's an example:

7:37am: I know I have to be at work by 8:00 and it's a 7-minute walk/run from the metro so I book it down the left side of the stairs to try to make it on the metro before the doors close.  I fail at the first attempt.

7:39am: The second metro comes by and I pick my spot according to which cars look less crowded, but a few shorter and more experienced Chilean women beat me to the spot I thought I had and I experience my first wave of panic because I am sure I won't make it by 8:00 (although none of my students ever arrives before 8:10am, I hate being late)

7:42am:  The next metro comes even fuller, but I turn my panic into determination and hold my ground against the people trying to cut in the imaginary line I create since I was there first.  I succeed in that I squish my way on the metro, but 4 people squeezed and pushed their way ahead of me

7:48am:  A young woman gets on the metro with her infant and just misses being knocked over by someone else trying to get on in front of her who may or may not have seen her precious cargo.  I get so angry I want to scream, but then a man jumps up from his seat, pushes through the crowd, and makes sure the woman sits down with her baby and within seconds, my faith is restored in Chileans.  

7:52am:  Pushed up against the door with an 8-year-old boy gleefully playing bumper cars with me without my consent while his father just smiles at his darling son (I want to punch them both), we get to Pedro de Vadivia where about half of the metro gets off.  I dash up the steps in hopes that I don't get stuck behind the chilenas on their way to their colegios and begin my practice of darting in and out of pedestrian road blocks on my way to work.

7:59am:  I run up the steps to work and am sweating a little from my 7-minute speed walk.  I  breathlessly say hello to the secretary who always laughs when I run up the steps to my empty classroom.  

8:00am-8:10am:  I twiddle my thumbs and drink coffee until my students arrive

I was thinking about why I continue to have the same experience and I think the easiest answer is that I'm a foreigner from a country where personal space is important and where most people follow relatively strict rules in public.  For example, I'm originally from outside of DC where the metro is only crowded in the mornings and the evenings, but no one's face is ever jammed against the door.  If some woman were to push by me and through the 10 people trying to get off of the metro, 5 bystanders would say something either under their breaths or to her face about how rude that is.  Here, if you don't hold your ground waiting to get on the metro in the morning, you will never get on.  While I was studying here, I often let 2 to 3 metros pass before I found a decent-sized space without having to push or shove.  Now, I find myself committing several transportation faux pas according to the imbedded American rules I always carry with me, but I chalk them up to necessity without thinking twice.  I often think that if New York City metro-goers or DC riders could see me, they'd shake their heads in disapproval, but then I think about the other side of it and decide they have no idea what it's like here (and I had no idea before because I almost always got around by car or by foot and saved metros for vacations and day trips to DC).  But there are some people, like my sister, who will forever be disgusted and annoyed by how not all countries respect a line of people waiting for something or personal space.  She visited me in Chile last year and it drove her crazy how lines quickly dissolved as people dashed to be first and how pedestrians did not follow the same "stay on the right side" rule as cars.  I think my daily metro rage comes from that thinking and then I quickly calm down.  You could call it a mini-culture shock I will never fully adjust to or perhaps plain stupid Americanness.  Either way, I don't think I'll ever get over being slightly annoyed when people arrive at 9:25 when we planned to meet at 9:00 or when people step all over my feet and push me into a position that makes them more comfortable on the metro.