Renaming priority seats
I am a college exchange student in the US and I want to respond to the article about priority seats on public transport. (“Proposal on priority seat removal reaches threshold,” Sept. 9, page 4). I am worried that the focus on the removal of seats obscures the true social problem that generates conflict and fights on the Taipei Metro.
Removing all the priority seating is not the remedy for conflicts on the Taipei Metro. It will leave commuters with no comfort and turn every seat into a potential fight, because there is no priority seat for people who are in need. This would be the least desirable outcome for the government. What the Taipei City Government wants is to provide a caring riding experience for all.
Taipei City Hall should consider changing the name of priority seats as the Taiwan Railways Administration has changed the Chinese for priority seating from boaizuo (博愛座) to youxianzuo (優先座). The word “priority” should be translated as youxian, meaning “coming or being dealt with first,” but not boai, meaning “loving others,” which misleads the public into believing that not yielding seats is hideous behavior. Once the misinterpretation people have of priority seat is redirected, people with invisible needs will not be afraid of being forced to yield priority seats.
Public media has the role of a monitor and an agent between the people and the authority should urge Taipei City Hall to make the positive change. We do not need the removal petition, but an appropriate renaming of priority seating.
Lu Sz-luen
Framingham, Massachusetts
In defense of hunting
How sick can the government be to jail an Aboriginal man because he shot a serow (a wild goat) and a barking deer. Both, by the way, are not endangered, despite wacky environmentalists’ claims.
Aborigines in Taiwan were hunting way before any Chinese immigrants came. Putting a man in prison for more than three years is cruel for just hunting. Hunting is not a crime. In the US we have a division of Fish and Game to set up hunting seasons and the way so many Taiwanese are out of touch with nature, it would be great to have a limited sport hunting season as well as hunting rights for Aboriginal people.
Look at a map of Taiwan: The interior is so remote and there are plenty of game animals. I see so many deer and serow while hiking and fishing.
I would like to shrink the members of wildlife conservation groups to the size of one’s middle finger and put them in a room full of cats. Let’s see if the cats show as much mercy to them as they do hunters.
Stuart Bacha
Tainan
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