With her knees slightly bent, and her right foot a few centimeters ahead of her left, Liu Ying-mei (劉英妹) stood in the perfect position to tackle a big wave.
But instead of bracing herself for a giant breaker on a sandy beach, the 67-year-old former teacher from Beitou held on for dear life while riding Taipei’s Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system.
“The young people nowadays are not so well-mannered. They see it as their right to sit in any empty seat, no matter who is left standing,” Liu said as she wrapped her sun-spotted hands tightly around a metal support pole while a young couple appeared to be sound asleep in the blue seats reserved for people with special needs.
The scene became more ironic when the announcement, repeated in Mandarin, Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese), Hakka and English, calling for people to give up seats for those in need sounded throughout the carriage. Still, no one got up.
Now retired, the silver-haired Liu depends on the MRT, taking it at least four times a day to go shopping at the traditional market or visiting friends.
“Some people do give up their seats when they see an elderly person, but many just wait for others to get up or pretend they are asleep,” she said.
The Taipei Rapid Transit Co (TRTC) is not oblivious to the problem.
Since 1995, the company has held 10 large-scale campaigns to promote MRT etiquette, such as lining up in an orderly manner and yielding seats to those in need, as well as safety on the escalators, TRTC vice-president and spokesman Chao Hsiung-fei (趙雄飛) said.
Last year, the company launched a program in which senior citizens and physically disabled passengers can obtain a pink sticker at the information booths in each station. The aim was that other passengers would give up their seats whenever they see someone wearing the heart-shaped sticker without having to be asked.
Many cars have also been plastered with four-frame comic strips, submitted by ordinary citizens, on the topic of showing deference to the elderly and infirm.
“We have seen major progress in people’s conduct on the MRT over the last few years. Many passengers would now rather stand than sit in the priority seating,” he said, adding many bus passengers have also caught the “courtesy fever” that TRTC started.
However, there is still much work to be done on improving people’s riding habits, he said.
Sung Hsiao-dai (宋曉黛), the mother of a wheelchair-bound boy who suffers from cerebral palsy, said although her son does not need a priority seat, “I often wish other passengers would yield their seat to me because I get very tired from pushing his wheelchair.”
Jack Hsu (許玉源), president of the parents’ association for the Huakuang Center for the Disabled in Hsinchu County, said that while the situation has definitely improved, many parents still complain about having to compete with “normal people” for seats for their special needs children.
“Sometimes parents are too shy to ask other passengers to yield. But the fact is, they should remind them, because they are in the perfect position to educate such passengers,” he said, asking why the public needed to be “taught” about such basic manners in a country that prides itself on its warm hospitality.
Taipei City Education Bureau Chief Wu Ching-shan (吳清山) attributed waning courtesy levels over the last few years to capitalism and the fact that people are having fewer children.
“In a capitalist society, people are more concerned about themselves than others,” he said, but expressed optimism that things could get better if parents, schools and the government worked together to promote politeness.
Wu said the high cost of living amid the economic slump has made many parents reluctant to have more than one child, and those who have children end up spoiling them and not teaching them proper manners.
“Sometimes the kids learn about courtesy at school and they end up educating their parents about lining up, standing to the right while riding the escalator and yielding seats,” he said.
Nevertheless, Wu said he believes Taipei City’s overall etiquette level has improved significantly in the last 10 years and said it would not be long until foreign tourists not only tout the country’s hospitality and warmth, but also its politeness.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS