Close the damn door
Unpacking a puzzling phenomenon
I knew it would happen before I saw it.
The neatly-dressed, immaculately-coiffed man stepped through the sliding door of the café, the one he’d opened not ten seconds ago, then left it ajar as he went inside to order.
My partner and I rolled our eyes. We had been in Bangkok for a week and—for better or worse—the area we were staying in was swarming with Chinese tourists, all of whom well-groomed and none apparently capable of closing the door after themselves.
We had seen it at our hotel, at restaurants, and now this café. Every time we encountered a suspected Chinese tourist, we knew they’d leave whatever door they’d opened ajar.
Why?
Why don’t you close the door?
I blame the parents, I surmised while sharing this curious phenomenon complaining to a friend post-trip. I blame the government, she countered. Our indignation was shared, but my bafflement far exceeded hers.
It’s weeks later and I’m still asking myself: why? You open the door, you step through it, and then you close it. Such a simple, basic operation it’s breaking my brain that a large number of people “step through” and leave it at that.
How can they not realise that we close doors for good reasons—to keep out noise, pollution, bugs, rabid dogs—and that everyone is responsible for closing doors that they opened?
I happened to be inside the café when the same man came in to ask for sugar—could I please have some sugar?—and his politeness only magnified my puzzlement. This is a person who had been taught manners, yet once more he left the door open when he went back outside.
It’d be easy to dismiss this phenomenon as evincing a lack of common sense. But that still doesn’t explain why. Did these people grow up in a house where no one closed doors? (But wouldn’t all their doors then be open all the damn time?) Did they—a more likely scenario—grow up in a house where someone always closed the door after them? Did they—a less likely scenario—at some point decide to subvert societal norms by leaving ajar every door they touch?
I suspect, if I’d gone up to that man and asked, Why aren’t you closing the door after yourself, Mr. Stranger?, he himself might not be able to tell me.
The doors we leave open
In the absence of answers, my searching mind settled instead on questions. Could we take this leaving open of doors as indicative of a deeper issue? Can it be that those who don’t close physical doors also leave open metaphorical ones? That they share a tendency to push unresolved problems—opened Pandora’s boxes—onto the plate of others?
Does this seemingly insignificant behavior reveal a fundamental failure to take responsibility for one’s lives?
Do I leave my metaphorical doors open even as I meticulously close physical ones? Do you? Do we, if not all the time, then at least some of the time?
If we picture life as the opening of doors, one after another, each revealing anything from our heart’s greatest desires to monsters we’ve spent our lives repressing, can we say with certainty that we always close those doors after ourselves?
When we embark on a new endeavour that fails, do we take responsibility for our failure or blame others for not helping us succeed? When we make a big decision that turns out to be wrong, do we take responsibility for our choice or decry those who misled us? When anything at all goes wrong in our lives, do we accept that it is down to us—and only us—to make things right, or do we expect our partner/parent/friend/colleague/Amazon to save us?
What are the doors we’re leaving open? And why aren’t we closing them?
What do you think?
My friend will be amazed that I have turned this minor observation into a whole newsletter. But this is exactly what I want Val Thinks to be: the questioning of even life’s most mundane occurrences. Now for your question:
Do you close the door after yourself? Physically and metaphorically.
If you don’t close physical doors, I will be infinitely grateful if you could respond to tell me why. If it’s metaphorical ones you leave open, I’ll be honoured if you’ll share more with me and our community of thinkers. Please hit “reply” or leave a comment—I read every response and I’d love to hear from you. If you want, share this post with someone who always closes the door—physical and metaphorical—after themselves.
Until next Friday… Stay thoughtful,
Val
As the second-generation child of Chinese immigrants to America, and someone who visits China, Hong Kong and America often I have often observed cultural differences such as the one you describe. Throw me some rope here, I am generalizing but the incidents below I personally witnessed.
Within China, there is little regard for others outside of your immediate circle. A cafe owner who didn't bother to build a self-closing door would certainly fall within that category.
I had an incident in China where my mom fell into a ditch in the road because she wasn't paying attention. She ended up with a hairline fracture on her ribs because of this. Some things that she was surprised about but I was not (perhaps because being in the USA for almost 50 years had changed her internal programming): "Why is no one helping us?", she said, to which I replied why would they? It's not their responsibility. No one here knows you except for me. And then it dawned on me, my mom never travels by herself inside China and is almost constantly surrounded by friends and family so her perception is quite different than mine. I almost laughed out loud when she started yelling at the food vendor "I'm going to sue you", to which I replied, "Sue them for what? This is not America! For making food that smelled to good that you neglected to watch where you were going and fell into a ditch?"
While China is most definitely improved since the 1970s when they left, however the competitiveness and desire for profit above all else sometimes brings out some of the worst from people. Examples of this include fake milk formula (adulterated with melamine to increase profit margin), to this day, there are export restrictions for milk formula from Hong Kong to prevent mainland Chinese from taking too much of the local trusted Hong Kong supply. Gutter oil that is harvested from fryers and sewer drains to refine and re-use continues to be a problem.
But I digress, this was originally a question about doors. To which I pose a simple observation about China. To this day, if you walk into most any restaurant in China, the tissue paper is chargeable. Reason being, if the tissue paper was not chargeable there would be someone who would take all of the tissue paper back home and not care about leaving some for the next person. Where do you think closing a door behind them ranks on their priority list?
There are many places where shop doors close automatically, and indeed some in which it is mandated for fire safety. Perhaps they were just used to doors closing behind them without manual effort.