When Nanjing’s newest metro line commenced operations last month, little did most know that similar openings were occurring at the exact same moment all over China. But how can so many such large undertakings be synchronised across the country?
It was on 28 December that Nanjing’s newest mass transit route, Metro Line S6, began running for the general public with paying passengers. It was joined by an extension to Line 2, adding four new stations to the route. The two had started services at midday.
Elsewhere, another seven lines were opened in six other cities across China. Specifically, these were the cities of Dalian, Foshan, Ningbo, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Wuhu. When it was all over, another 211 kilometres of track had been added to China’s mass urban transit systems, revealed Metro Report International. And it had all happened on the same day.
So the question now becomes twofold. How is it possible, and why?
In most western countries, a large public works engineering project projected to be completed in 4 or 5 years shall run over by 1 or 2 years (at least). They are the poster children for the inefficiencies of democracies.
China, on the other hand, not only knows 5 years out when a project will be completed, it can give you an opening date as well.
But coordinating such efforts in seven different cities to all culminate on a single day requires bringing to the table superlative excellence in organisation and manpower, together with engineering prowess.
As regards the former two, China is famed for its almost infinite supply of labour and an ability to bring everything together bang on time, sometimes to the millisecond. Just look at the Beijing Olympics of 2008 or our very own Youth Olympics in Nanjing in 2014, the organisation of which was referred to by IOC President, Thomas Bach, as “flawless”.
Looking to the latter, the western world now needs to get used to the increasingly real fact that Chinese universities are the best in the world in some fields. One of those is engineering.
But what of the second question? To sum up, China opened nine metro lines in seven cities in unison because of superstition.
In China, all kinds of important things happen when it is a lucky day. That’s when businesses will officially begin trading, while there shall also be weddings galore and firecrackers exploding outside new restaurants.
And as it turned out, 28 December, 2021, was the mother of lucky days. According to ChineseCalendarOnline.com, the date has more positive associations than just about any other. And top of the list of things to do this day was grand openings.
Delving deeper, that our metro systems started their new services at 12:00 is also no coincidence. For Chinese astrology points to the hours between 11:00 and 13:00 on 28 December as the best time for any kind of consecration ceremony.
In fact, the day itself was a good one for anything sacrificial, together with adopting children, signing contracts, breaking ground and seeing the doctor.
To be sure, if it was, like, really important, 28 December last year was the day to do it.
