Holmes linked me to this several months ago and everytime I watch it I want to curl up in fetal position and whimper. Imagining myself being shoved this closely to others gives me the heebies.
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Oh, hell no. Somebody would get punched in the face because I need my personal space. I don’t do close contact like that. Do they think the subway is a clown car?
Holy ####! I would completely freak out! The way those people are crammed in there, you know the ones near the door just FALL OUT as soon as the doors are opened!
It isn’t a clown car…it’s a vagina….or maybe the joke is the other way around….dyslexia stupid!
nope, nope nope, not a chance in hell. And we wonder why people of other cultures often have personal space issues (ie at the bank or store standing in line and they stand on your heals) my sister years ago had no sense of this. I put my hands on my hips and twisted and said “if I can bump you, you’re too close now back up” but with strangers, you don’t need to be all up in my stuff, back up
I’ve seen that video before and thought there is no job in the world worth that commute. I would live on the street before I would do that.
I especially like how the conductors/security guards/persons in uniform don’t say, “No, this train is full.” No, they team up and push like the baby’s crowning. Whose got the next vid where they use a bulldozer to pack ‘em in?
I bet it smells real nice in there too. Forget about elbow room, there is not even any ballroom.
I never understood this until I, a white american woman of western European descent, lived in a 21 story graduate student housing building that was 70% asian students and their families. Lovely people, and I’d live there again, if I was still in school. But to a person - Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Thai, Malayasian it mattered not, they were all EXACTLY the same with the elevator- unable to get on and unable to get off. We are in the lobby. The elevator opens: “Good heavens!! WHO could have expected this? It’s the elevator, here to take us in an upward direction. Should we get on? Now? Should we get on now?” There’s a sense of unease, but no movement. Then, everyone steps forward. Then, everyone stops. No one says, “after you” or makes any type of gesture, or defers to anyone else, there’s just feet shifting. At this point, either someone western steps on to the elevator with an annoyed sigh, and everyone follows, or the doors start to close, and an asian person is forced to grab the door and step on, after which everyone follows. Getting off the elevator is even WORSE: “We are at the 12th floor, and I am startled, my friend, aren’t you? I did push the button marked 12, yet still it surprises me to be here, now, so suddenly, and faced with this required action. It would seem the wisest course is to move toward the door.” JESUS CHRIST ON A STICK! GET OFF THE ****IN’ ELEVATOR OR I’LL KILL YOU WHERE YOU STAND!!!!!! I would scream in my head at least 4 times a day. And that is why they need “pushers” on the subway. If they didn’t have “pushers,” the mass transist system would never work.
Totally giggling. Hilarious, BiscuitTin!
I had read about these “pushers,” but I had never seen any in action. Here’s an idea: Buy more train cars!! This is nonsensical! Oh dear, how ethnocentric of me.
I suppose it’s true that humans can get used to anything, but there’s no way I would ever do this ONCE, much less enough times to get used to it.
Did it strike anyone else that they were eerily quiet, except for the pushers? They all just silently concentrated on squeezing and pushing themselves into the cars. Very strange.
It is so funny that they can’t grasp the concept of the elevator!
My college story is similar….Where I went to college it drove me nuts because the elevator would be full and in typical American fashion as one person gets off you shift around so you give everyone adequate space right?! WRONG! The asian students would continue to stand right on top of you regardless of the fact that you were the only two people on the elevator. I wanted to scream, “in this country we move the frick over, we do not stand on top of people and violate their personal space.”
My mom visited China a few years back and she said it was weird because she’d be standing at a stop light waiting to walk across the street and someone would literally come up beside her and their elbows would be touching. She’s not a complete OCD freak like me, because I would have gone ballistic on somebody!
I love Asia and “Asians”… and having been a “foreigner” since my early teens having traveled half the world… I would still not enter these trains EVER. I’d rather walk.
Speaking of experiences, it’s not personal space, personal belongings too! I had a Vietnamese friend of mine crash at my place one night (after missing the last train), imagine my surprise when I came to offer her one of those brand new toothbrush I’d gotten from some airplane she said “no need to open a new package! I can use yours…” and before I had the time to say anything she grabbed my toothbrush and started using it….
My elevator story is quite similar…My older brother was world champion martial artist and we went to Thailand so that he could fight the best Muay Thai fighter. At his first fight, Tong Po used a dirty move and paralyzed him. My anger seethed inside me, so I started to train with a quiet local farmer, who happened to be the enemy of a developer who wanted to ruin the farmer’s lives and develop the land with strip malls full of nail salons. As I trained, my strength and skill sharpened, as did my searing need to avenge my brother’s tragedy. In the ring, Tong Po put quite a beat-down on me for a while…It seemed that I wouldn’t win. But then, we dipped our rope-wrapped hands in hot wax and broken glass and I knew this was live or die. Tong Po was slashed across his chest, and I on my face. After quite a tussle, I finally snap kicked Tong Po out of the stone circle and in to the crowd. He fell, bloodied and beaten next to his boss, my sensei’s enemy. We won, we won! The farmers can farm. Greed was abolished. My brother got a Rascal motors-scooter. Life is good. (Except, now my brother takes up a ton of space on elevators, and that pisses me off!)
I was wondering when you story was going to get to the point of elevators and then, ZING! Vintage Holmes–Hilarious!
Congrats on beating Tong Po!