I’ve noticed since I’ve been here that some people take a really long fucking time and hold up queues for a good 10 to 15 minutes to do even the simplest of things.
I went to the train station today to buy a ticket. There were 2 people in front of me, and it took me 10 minutes to buy my ticket.
The guy at the front seemed to be making the process as complicated as possible. I mean he needed a fucking supervisor to help buy his ticket. Then the next woman started arguing about not being able to buy a ticket for a train scheduled to depart 10 minutes ago.
What’s up with that? It’s something I notice, a lot.
What about the people at cash machines who must be running cash liquidity accounts for small African countries the time it takes them to do their business.
I notice this. But even more than this, I notice how in the last ten years, the ability for people in Taiwan to queue up has completely deteriorated. On many occasions I’ve wanted to get a body cam to record all the people who blatantly just cut in the MRT line when everyone else is lining up nicely. It annoys me so much but I know if I say anything then I’ll be video recorded and end up on one of those degenerate fucking websites they call news.
While I don’t deny these people exists in Taiwan, I kind of doubt it’s that bad in Taiwan. Especially relative to other places.
What you’re describing is a daily life experience for me in the UK or Italy.
At some point is Taiwan a pretty decent place to be when you’re complaining of a problem I’ve encountered everywhere with some far worse in my experience?
I had it once. The bank often has only one ATM that disposes 100 NTD bills. That genius woman went to that one to make her stupid transfer, even though other ATM’s were free. Then she tried to transfer money, entering the account number slowly, only for it to fail. The ATM flashing into her face that the account did not have enough funds! Guess what, trying to transfer 5 more times also had the same outcome.
I went to call someone from the bank to help this lost soul. Others pointing out to her, she can try to use the other two ATM, as there were already 5 people waiting for her to leave. She just glanced over with a weird look in her face… and continued with her business. In the end she just left without accomplishing anything, besides wasting other people’s time.
Around Chinese New Year there was a guy in front of me at 711 that must have taken $400,000 out (20-some withdrawals of what I assume to be the $20,000 max) and stuffing it into his pockets.
Only in Taiwan is someone comfortable stuffing $400,000 into their pocket to then just walk out of there without fear of getting mugged.
I think the majority of people in each culture are very “me me me.” The problem here is that this attitude shows up at the most irritating times: in line at 7-11, getting on the crowded MRT, getting on/off an elevator.
And another problem is that calling someone out for it makes the caller the asshole, and the people here are very timid, so lots of people get away with the behavior.
The thing I always hate is walking behind someone on a sidewalk
First of all the sidewalks have tiny space to walk in most parts if they exist at all so mostly one person can fit
Then u r walking with your normal pace and the taiwanese in front of decide to just stop randomly and u have to put an emergency brake on your legs so u don’t hit him
I try coughing loudly, that often works. Especially when they see who is behind them, they get out of the way pretty quickly. When there is a conscious decision to be made, they choose to make way. It’s just the general obliviousness to other people that means they didn’t notice me right behind them
