Yeah, except the two guys (one with the kid) clapping along. Everyone else has the nervous look which kinda says, “WTF??”
I was also thinking, “WTF?”
My SO says, “Hmmm… Strange, but is ok…” I think she’s just being polite.
Let’s just say, I wouldn’t do that. I would be too worried about disturbing other folks. But no one seemed to mind, so I guess no harm done.
[quote=“Buttercup”]
Silliness should be encouraged in the world. Commonplace stupidity is rewarded on a societal level, so why not random daftness?[/quote]
:bravo: :bravo: :bravo:
Yeah…Should they have been more sensitive to local culture?..Yes
Did it possibly open someones mind?..I hope so.
I wish I was on that car.
Looked like a lot of fun (From my western point of view)
HAHAHAHA that is soo true. Cuz you NEVER KNOW when that “wai guo ren” next to you is going to break out into song and dance !!!
and you noticed? he wasnt alone. there was another accomplice across from him.
For sure most people in that car didnt know what to make of it? Probably the first time they have ever seen such a display (and thats the reason the title is not “Should anyone” but instead refers particularly to foreigners, because if a taiwan person were to do that , they would call the police !!)
i was once on a crowded bus and thought of this really funny joke and i just sorta smiled and chuckled to myself. And within 30 seconds all the people standing very close to me moved at least five feet away, cuz they thought i may be looney !!
for those to whom the video wont load. YOU simply have to watch it when it does load. Its kinda hard to describe the “feel” in detail. But basically its a coupla (one in particular) foreigner banging on a makeshift drum and singing some children songs.
I was embarashed for him at first, but later in the vid i realized, it isnt soo bad!! And maybe we need more foreigners to add some color to the staid MRT. So true that prevailing zombieness. That has to be dispelled.
and you noticed how everyone clapped at the end 
EDIT: seeing the vid again i noticed several things i missed the first time i saw it.
strangely i dont think he wouldve been allowed to play at the stations but since no police in the railcars no problemo
at the subways in NYC. you always come across makeshift entertainers. And a lot of them are VERY GOOD. I saw a group of young blacks (they just happened to be black) break dancing and that was awesome. And individual or pairs of musicians too. Adds color .
Taipei MRT is very clean but sterile, Needs color
I don’t know if that can be determined, unless you have the Vulcan Mac PC which can read the minds of people digitized on video.
I don’t know if that can be determined, unless you have the Vulcan Mac PC which can read the minds of people digitized on video.[/quote]
YUP got that !
I’d say it was a dare/bet. But then again, doing something publically weird will get NO reaction in most places in Asia. Japanese men get drunk and later whip out their dicks and piss inside the trains, and some forget the whipping out part. No one raises a brow.
And I don’t agree with the “zombie” comments. I like the MRT. It’s quiet. I can read my book. I don’t need some jackass making noisynoise to add “color.”
STFU
[quote=“jdsmith”]I’d say it was a dare/bet. But then again, doing something publically weird will get NO reaction in most places in Asia. Japanese men get drunk and later whip out their dicks and piss inside the trains, and some forget the whipping out part. No one raises a brow.
And I don’t agree with the “zombie” comments. I like the MRT. It’s quiet. I can read my book. I don’t need some jackass making noisynoise to add “color.”
STFU[/quote]
HAHA true that. And at least be glad Taipei’s MRT is not like Japans (yet)
youtube.com/watch?v=3deYZNLnpWk& … ed&search=
(at least there is NO room for drums of any sort there)
If he’s there with friends having a good time, it would seem like fun, but if he’s alone it would seem he’s missing a few circuits in his braincase, kind of like the “meow meow” guy at Ximending.
That guy’s an ass. He’s not making music - I’ve heard professional buskers in Canada and across Europe, and this guy isn’t in their league. He’s just a jerk imposing his noise on innocent bystanders.
What’s that guy all about? I’ve not heard about him.
[quote=“sandman”]One of the best things I like about the Paris Metro is the way buskers get to work the trains. Saw some AMAZING gypsy fiddlers and stuff. Sure they were busking but most of them were so good it was a pleasure to pay them.
Taipei DESPERATELY needs more colour like this. DESPERATELY.[/quote]
I agree with you about Taipei desperately needing more color…but this guy is lacking in talent of any kind IMO. I might share a chuckle with the fellow passengers, but on another day, I might move to another car.
I’ll never forget my first visit to England and taking the London Underground. I was greeted on my way down by a huge rasta guy playing Aqualung on his bass saxophone…he got my money. MRT drum boy doesn’t even rate.
This is what happens to Foreigners that teach too much kindergarten… 
Seriously though, look closely and you will see people dancing and clapping to this guy’s psycho babble rocking. Looks like they were having fun…but a few people clearly looked annoyed…hey, can’t please em all!
I see characters on the MRT all the time…usually not as dramatic as this fellow.
Hmmmm…Might start a new thread…whacky things you see on the MRT [would be great to post photos too]
I will start with my list here…
Troop of junior or senior high students (about 12 of them) singing some sort of Taiwanese song, kind of sounded like a camp song.
4 or 5 teenage hip hop street dancers on one of those longer MRT trains that go to Danshui…the ones with no seats. They were practicing their dance moves and had a boom box.
A solo teenager with his MP3 player in his ears. He was jamming out to whatever he was listening to…doing his little dance on the train.
Two teenage Taiwanese practicing doing the “robot”
Some crazy mentally ill guy wandering through the cars trying to shake hands with every friggen person on the train. When he came to me, he made even more of a spectacle of himself by publicly announcing to the entire train that there was an American on the MRT. :ohreally:
A guy so engrossed on his nose picking job that he got a nose bleed - and it was a gusher…people parted like the red sea! Poor guy.
That is about as crazy as i have seen it. Would be cool to start a conga line on one of the longer trains…bu bu bu bu bum…HEY! bu bu bu bu bum…HEY! I dare someone to do it and take a film of it - then post it here! 
I would say that busking should go on as a trial period and people’s reactions should be judged. There are plenty of Taiwanese buskers outside the train station at Dan-Shui on a weekend and people react possitively to them, it’s another thing on a train though, when most people are sleeping on their way to and from work. Hmmmm…art good!..Noise…bad!..He can’t have a licence, so I would say no! Other than that, it’s probably more possitive than negative, it just seems weird and out of place, that’s all. He did get some good reactions in the video though.
Yes…I think it was because he finally stopped.
but smith likes to have his MRT on the quiet side please !
and generally im the same. who needs the impromtu performances? YEs to having them at the stations but NO to having them on the trains tho.
i might go for some sexy cheerleaders doing their routine tho? Other then that? probably not.
my personal pet peeve on the MRT is all the unnecesarry noise generated by the announcements.
in mandarin, taiwanese and hakka and english??
i understand that those are the three major languages found on taiwan and English is the new wannabe lingua franca in taiwan.
but why not just have the mandarin and the english?? that will be WAY nicer. When someone is talking soo fast , it adds to the rush factor.
if we only have 2 languages spoken for announcements on the train. And done in a calming manner. That will make the ride better in my opinion. The quieter the commute the better. SEeing as its soo noisy up top on the streets in Taipei.
the MRT is what taipei is not. Its clean where Taipei is messy, and its supposed to be relatively noisefree (where taipei city is definitely not).
i can understand using the four languages for announcements on the regular trains and the high speed train as stops are not as frequent by far.
whereas on the MRT , theres a stop coming every few minutes. So its that constant jabber!!!
I will post the link to someone I know from the CA dep at the MRT and ask their opinion.
Watched the clip without sound (even though he might suck in performance) and I only see folks who are clapping along and a SMILE on thier face! A SMILE, on the MRT in TAIWAN?
As Sandman said, those guys color the world and we need more of them here. Let him do his mambo-jambo. he gets my support!
I thought that was kind of the joke–he is so bad, that it is funny.
I saw a foreigner get on and off the subway in full rat costume, with the whiskers, ears and everything, so this kind of stuff doesn’t really bother me. I’ll take this over the dozens of nose pickers I have to see on the subway all the time.
A couple of cute xiaojies seemed to enjoy the performance, so that’s at least something to count in his favour.
If I were exposed to a performance like that, I wouldn’t much appreciate the noise, but I’d find it quite amusing to observe other people’s reactions.
I’ve no problem with people providing entertainment on the MRT, provided it’s genuinely entertaining and is not accompanied by begging.
[quote=“tommy525”]and you noticed how everyone clapped at the end 
[/quote]
Yeah, that’s like the first month I got to Taiwan. I got rat arsed drunk and found myself in a KTV. The kind where everyone sits in a bar like place with one mic and everyone takes turns singing. After my first horrible rendition of “Cotton Fields” by CCWR everyone smiled and applauded. The second, third and fourth rendition were met with cold annoyed stares which I was oblivious to in my drunkeness. Eventually one of the patrons had a girl sent over to talk to me and ply me with more alcohol just to stop me from singing again.
Trust me, on first shot, almost anything in Taiwan is guaranteed to get a nice polite clap.
I can just imagine what was going on in their minds (the MRT folks, not my KTV “fans”) when after the train pulled away from the stop and he broke out with “Old MacDonald had a farm”…