I have not been to China for over a decade and coming here now was a bit of a shock. Tall buildings everywhere, cars replacing the myriad of bicycles that clogged the streets of Beijing on my last trip. Young people laughing and flirting. Parents caring for their coveted only child. Children who are well behaved and curious.
I loved saying “ni hao” (pronounced “knee how”) for hello, as the little ones would stare at my blue eyes and curly blondish hair, hide behind parents and then peek out again to figure out what was the same and what was different about this stranger.
The city of Shanghai is clean and filled with restaurants, shops and the bustle of a prosperous large city. Mostly we were the only Caucasians in a sea of Asians. We were treated with courtesy and kindness. Very few spoke English and we had to make sure we had a card with our hotel in Chinese to get back to home base.
I happened to pick up a newspaper and was glancing at some of the articles of the day and a top news story in the Shanghai Daily from October 14, 2015 caught my eye.
There was a photo showing a Kunming Airlines flight attendant in her red uniform covering her face as she was crammed into the overhead compartment. Yes, crammed into the overhead compartment. The official response when the photo was circulated widely online was that the “the female flight attendants were very happy to be put into the compartments” and it is “just a way of celebrating the completion of their first flight and there is no malicious behavior of any kind.”
Media reports said the practice has been in place for years and new female flight attendants had no choice but to accept it. When some of the women reported this in the past it was dismissed and had no effect. Some said this was part of corporate culture.
In my work with leadership development I have a passion to research the universal desire to grow and learn. In my book “GUTSY: How Women Leaders Make Change” I have focused on the power of the family history to either make women speak out or stay passive.
I do believe it is basic to all of us in the human family to learn and grow. Deep down we all want to challenge the status quo and overcome limitations. Male and female we are deeply embedded with the desire to make the world a better place.
It is only when we are caught in the loyalty of outdated beliefs that we become stagnant.
Once we begin to speak out, (and in this day of social media) we have a powerful new way to be heard, and change can happen more effectively.
Let’s stop blindly accepting the status quo.
Putting the women in overhead compartments is……mildly speaking, pretty ridiculous. What is more astounding is how many years it took for women to speak out. The good news is that at least women are gathering the courage to say “STOP!”
A friend in Shanghai said he thought that just the fact this was in the news and all over social media was another hard kick for old patterns that no longer work in a world demanding equality.
It’s what the world needs now.
