Similar to the MRT cabin in Singapore,
some of the seats are also reserved for the elderly, handicapped or
toddlers. Interestingly, I noticed that those
seats were never occupied by working or physically fit adults even during peak hours. Moreover, I
witnessed an incident which has left a deep impression in me. At a particular train station, when an old lady entered, a young
girl who was standing near the exit immediately offered to carry her items
while helping her to one of the reserved seats. After which, the old lady
praised the young girl for being helpful while the other passengers nodded in
approval. Soon, these passengers started striking conversations with one
another.
In comparison, I feel that this
particular gracious culture is lacking in Singapore. We often see the reserved
seats being taken up by other passengers whom do not belong to the reserved
seat categories. Sometimes, the passengers whom belongs to the priority group are not able to find seats because people are either busy using their mobile phones or being oblivious to their surroundings.
In the recent years, online social
platforms such as “Stomp” has been used by netizens to upload photos or even
videos portraying negative images of passengers for occupying these reserved
seats. For instance, a video featuring a
middle-aged woman and a young lady commuter arguing over a reserved seat has
been making the rounds on the Internet this year. The spat between them over a priority seat
goes to show that Singaporeans still have a long way to go to be a gracious
country. For example, particular action such as sleeping on train while occupying the reserved seat may lead to undesirable results such as having your photos posted on Stomp and drawing unwanted criticisms.
Therefore, instead of
encouraging graciousness within Singaporeans, it seems to breed the mindsets
that “Passengers are being obliged to give seats to the needy for fear of being
judged by people rather than them offering their seats out of genuine concern”.
Even though there may be other positive instances which portray the considerate
sides of Singaporeans, these incidents are usually not highlighted by the Stomp netizens partly because it is not
sensational enough.
Hence, it reflects to me that
different countries have different cultures. Taiwanese seem to be less afraid to express their thoughts and to show kindness to strangers in comparison to Singaporeans. Rather than just focusing on the
negative sides of passengers on social platform, we should learn to keep an
open mind by learning how to respect and communicate with one other as we all have different cultural backgrounds. With the increase in emphasis for public
education on graciousness in Singapore, I am pretty sure that Singaporeans will
eventually become a real gracious society and less of such ugly incidents will
then be mentioned in social platforms.
