English Teachers Are Happy To Share

English Teachers Are Happy To Share

Random Thoughts by Pauline

June 2017
One MTR ride

It was Saturday evening. I was on board the MTR on my way to Kwun Tong. The weather with a typhoon lurking around had been humid and stuffy. The compartment was not only packed but also filled with the rank smell of body odour. Close to standing on one foot, I felt suffocated. There was not much space to move.

Suddenly, the man standing next to me shied away from the woman in front of him and started to lean back a little towards me. I looked to find out what had caused the commotion. That woman who perhaps found her t-shirt wet with perspiration too body-hugging had put one hand underneath her shirt to have it lifted from inside! Cooling! I did one very unkind act - taking a photo of her in action. Of course, I made sure her face was not shown.

Then there was a teenage girl with a big rucksack standing near the doors. She was minding her own business – using her mobile phone. But unknowingly she had occupied the space of three passengers – herself, her rucksack and her two outstretched hands! As passengers elbowed their way to get off the train, they all murmured and rolled their eyes upwards.

Earlier, the MTR had issued public announcements calling for passengers with backpacks to unload them when boarding the compartments. There have been many other reminders. The familiar ones include asking passengers to stand behind the yellow line and giving way for passengers to get off first. Others are meant to tackle some problematic phenomena – wearing flip-flops and using the mobile phone when taking the escalators or wearing of thick clothing when temperature in the compartment is warmer than outside during the winter days etc.

We would have taken these to be acts of common sense not worth making a fuss and yet corporations such as MTR will make sure that reminders have been issued for the sole purpose of shirking legal responsibility!