Late one night, a Chinese man walked into a barbershop at a railway station in a small German town. The barber warmly welcomed him but refused to give him a haircut. The reason? The shop could only serve travelers holding train tickets—it was a rule. The Chinese man politely suggested that since there were no other customers in the shop anyway, couldn't they make an exception? The barber became even more courteous and replied that even though it was nighttime and no one else was around, they still had to follow the rules. With no choice, the man went to the ticket window and bought a ticket to the nearest station. When he returned to the barbershop with the ticket, the barber regretfully told him, "If you bought this ticket just to get a haircut, then I'm truly sorry, but I still cannot serve you."
When someone shared this story of the late-night barbershop with a group of Chinese students studying in Germany, many were deeply moved. "It's unbelievable," they said. "Germans are indeed so serious. A nation that adheres to rules and order at every moment and in every place will always remain a powerful nation." But others disagreed, arguing, "A single random incident can't determine such a broad characteristic. How can a small-town station and an almost pedantic individual represent an entire nation's character?" The debate grew heated, and when neither side could convince the other, someone proposed testing the truth through practical experiment. Thus, the clever students jointly designed a test.
Under the cover of night, they went to a public phone booth in the bustling city center. On the phones to the left and right, they respectively posted signs labeled "Men" and "Women," then quickly left. The next morning, they met again at the phone booth. To their astonishment, a long queue had formed in front of the phone marked "Men," while the one labeled "Women" stood completely empty. The students approached the calmly waiting men and asked, "Since no one is using the other phone, why don't you go over and make your call? Why wait so long?" Every man answered with a composed tone: "That one is reserved for women. We can only use this one. It's a matter of order..."
The students stopped arguing. On their quiet journey back, each reflected deeply. They all sensed, somewhat painfully, that they—and the nation they came from, once renowned as a land of etiquette and order—might have inadvertently lost some precious values over the years. In today's era, as we strive to rebuild national glory and integrate into the global community, perhaps discipline and order are exactly the qualities we need most.