This is on local TV tonight. One American refuses to yield seats to elderly when herself and her personal belongings ocupy two seats on MRT in Taipei. She refuses to move her personal stuff when one passenger asks her to move.
And she claims she is an AIT employee. 
has it been confirmed?
It doesnât need to be confirmed if itâs reported by Taiwanâs news media, which is in the business of distorting beyond recognition whatever sliver of truth might be hidden inside the actual reporting they do.
The video clearly shows this was originally a Facebook post by an ABC from Sugar Land, Texas. So once again, Taiwanâs crack team of reporters did their job from behind a computer screen. Way to go guys, encourage that obesity epidemic.
The news video showed a text of some kind. I donât know what party the text was addressing. Anyway, I was bored, so hereâs the part of the English portion of the text that I could read:
[quote]On June 5th, 2013, my mother was on the Tamshui (formerly Danshui) line heading north around 1:00 PM (1300). Every seat on her train was taken when she saw an elderly couple around 70- or 80-years old [part of the text was obscured by the TV companyâs logo] at Zhongshan station.
My mother, 60-years old herself, promptly stood up and offered her seat to the woman older and frailer than herself. She noticed that the woman in the picture below had her belongings sprawled out on the seat next to her so she asked on behalf of the older gentleman, âcan you move your stuff please?â Any respectful individual would promptly move their things to allow an elderly man a seat, Iâm sure you would agree.
Now my motherâs English is a bit broken so she had some trouble catching exactly what the woman was speaking due to the fast speed, but what happened is still clear as day. The woman angrily started shouting back at my mother, refusing to move and then insisting that my mother [obscured by logo] say âpleaseâ. My mother said that she did but followed up with âokay, please move your stuff?â
The woman still adamantly refused, saying things like how sheâs an American and boasting her AIT badge, implying that she shouldnât have to move because of her nationality. My mother immediately replied, âI am also an American. I donât care who you are, please move your stuff. Donât you see old people in front of you?â (Note: my mother and I are both US citizens. We reside in Sugar Land, Texas, and my mother is only in Taiwan for an extended family visit.) The woman continued to talk back to my mother in a very threatening tone, still denying the older man a seat.
Eventually my mother gave up on the lost cause and the woman never. . . .[/quote]
Hereâs a Facebook page on it: facebook.com/photo.php?fbid= ⊠=1&theater
Hereâs a nine-page Mobile01 thread on it: mobile01.com/topicdetail.php ⊠06&m=f&p=1
Hereâs my favorite post in the Mobile01 thread, from page 8:
Well, I said I was bored.
I fail to see how this is ânewsâ.
This kind of thing happens every single second somewhere in the world.
Itâs news because itâs a purported example of an evil foreigner oppressing old people in Taiwan. Gets the racists and the shallow thinkers excited, and is less boring than the usual reports on the crap economy or the latest violent scooter monkey incident in Taichung.
Although Iâm 99% sure that this report is 98% bullshit (Notice the lack of actual voice recordings or first-person witness accounts) and Taiwanese people do this sort of thing to each other everyday, when there is a foreigner involved the ratings go up if they can craft a report that makes the bignose look evil. The unethical media in Taiwan doesnât care about the fallout from its total lack of accountability, and all of the extrinsic motivators in place only serve to motivate continued distortion and racism. There are no punishments or controls, only incentives to do the wrong thing.
One side of the story as always, besides anybody with eyes can see the thing on Taipeiâs MRT everyday.
She was seated in a regular seat, not a priority seat, so she didnât have to give it up if she didnât want to.
If you look at the picture more closely, the priority seat in front of her seams to be unoccupied.
Also, if reporting something like this and bashing, denunciating/humiliating someone publicly on the INTERNET, one shall take more pictures of the surroundings, time and space wise.
Could you imagine any other major capitol city where this would be newsworthy?
I like to think of it the opposite way. They already know that they themselves are horrific to strangers and are shocked when the Westerner stoops to their level. They hold the white face up to a higher ideal. :discodance: :discodance: Maybe they feel bad about themselves that their nastiness is rubbing off on the white person. :discodance: :discodance:
The funny thing was the woman telling her to move was an American. So it was an American telling another American how to behave! It wasnât a noble Taiwanese wrestling with the mores of a foreigner, just two Americans having a go at each other.
Hardly isolated to the Taiwanese, it happens all the time, all over the world.
So what?
People are evil, there is no boundary in terms of nationality.
A friend posted this on Facebook. The comments on his post were all about the American Empire and bullying Taiwan. Give me a break. What happened to that guy who was all on about anti-American sentiment based on forum posts? Heâd love this.
Hardly isolated to the Taiwanese, it happens all the time, all over the world.
So what?
People are evil, there is no boundary in terms of nationality.[/quote]
My point was that locals do this to each other on a daily basis, and it isnât news.
In a multicultural city like mine, you could get hours of footage pr day of immigrants and tourists being knobheads on public transport. So what? Is it some freaky Taiwanese thing where they demand and expect all non Han to be well-mannered, deferent and grateful to be in Taiwan? Silly arses.
The other day, an elderly woman shuffled onto the MRT. Every seat was filled by somebody absorbed in playing with their phone (or computer, or whatever the hell those gadgets are). Nobody noticed her.
I often cause quite a ruckus by making room for elderly shufflers.
I despise younglings that have no respect for their elders. It matters not if they are of the bampot variety, maybe they earned that right.
Young punks aught to show some respect:
Since when do AIT employees ride the MRT?
This all reminds me of the guy who ran around naked at the Spring Scream in 2011, then claimed to be a researcher at Academia Sinica when rabid journalists caught with him. It wasnât true and I still can figure out why he went and claimed that.