Whenever I visit somewhere with a metro/subway that I haven’t yet boarded, that becomes a priority.

Sadly, China has been leading the way for a while now; I say sadly because they are truly unpleasant and often asinine constructions.

Example 1- most of the Chinese systems require a plastic token (which theoretically should be able to used at any station, no matter where you buy them. Alas, it’s not the case.). Plus, they expire after a few hours of not having been used.

Example 2- sometimes, you have to queue up just get change, in order to then queue up to buy the token. And queues in China are a lot like portion control in the US.

Example 3- have fun entering a Chinese metro with luggage, and going through the rigmarole of security theater, and escalators where no one moves.

Example 4- mobile phone service is allowed, and equally irritating, tvs with loud ads.

Example 5- because even China has trouble controlling its own people, many stations corral passengers with serpentine gates, which IMO slows things down, also insert brick in the wall reference here.

Example 6- pay when you leave. The NYer in me hates this, and backlogs seem worst in East Asia, where people are staring at their phones more than anywhere else...and it’s not because they all use wechat pay/alipay/octopus on their watches/whatever to exit.

Example 7- China is very lipstick on a pig. From afar, buildings and infrastructure look good...until you approach them. Not to mention, cigarette butts.

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As for my metro strategy, download a map pdf to FoxIt pdf (offline, of course), and voilá.