Stone Soup's Escalator Training School, for Thais

[StoneSoup]

Yes sirree.... step right up, Thai boys and girls, we're going to give you some free lessons on how to master that most difficult piece of technology known as ....the escalator (ban dai luen). ::

 

But first, a brief pre-test, to learn at what level we should start.

 

Choose one answer for each:

 

Question 1. I am preparing to step onto a "down" escalator at a crowded BTS station with dozens of other commutters jostling toward the narrow entrance ("the chute") at the top of the moving stairs. I should:

 

a. Hesitate for 5-10 seconds, gathering courage, as I prepare to accomplish the equivalent of leaping from a speeding freight train onto the bare back of a galloping stallion with buble bees up his ass.

 

b. Decide, as I step onto the top step, that I don't really want to go down - and that going to the bottom and coming back up might take months, or years - so I'll just execute a graceful pirouette, and slither through the oncoming crowd with the determination (and half the mental candle power) of a salmon jumping and battling through precipitous rapids, toward "hungry grizzly bear alley", along the Alaskan coast.

 

c. Demonstrate my intuitive grasp of the real purpose why the BTS authorities placed an extendable ribbon barrier near the top of the escalator, disguised to look as if it was trying to prevent commuters from crossing laterally from one side of station to the other (same level), across this particular choke point - it is obviously meant as a spontaneous try-out location for either the Thai high-hurdling squad, or (for the ladies) perhaps the woman's high jump contingent. Fate clearly meant for me to select THIS particular point to cross sideways RIGHT NOW, across this annoying perpendicular flow of humanity. I don't see why these inferior life forms who need to change levels cannot simply leap over the side of the platform, and leave me in peace, to challenge this flimsy ribbon's ability to thwart my chosen trajectory.

 

Question 2: I have actually mastered getting onto a down escalator - all by myself. I am now approaching the bottom of the moving stairway. I should:

 

a. Drop my BTS exit card onto the moving stairway, and entertain my fellow commuters as I frantically search for same.

 

b. Decide that this would be a good time to initiate a handphone call, which requires that I freeze to the spot like the proverbial "deer in the headlights", and grudgingly stutter step slightly onto the landing while moving at glacial - nay - at tectonic pace.

 

c. Proceed smartly and step off the escalator onto the landing crisply - and then immediately slow to an absolute crawl, to provide a little bit of serenity to the hustle and bustle around me - and to encourage all those behind me to likewise "stop and smell the roses"' right at the outlet point of the escalator.

 

Applications for the training school will be accepted "soon" - always next Tuesday.

I can't wait for the subway to open. More good training for the technologically challenged.

::

How do these people manage to drive cars and motorcycles?????

 

Let the good times roll !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stone Soup

The Fightihg Fish

[greedisgood]

"How do these people manage to drive cars and motorcycles????? "

 

They don't. You know what the death rate is ! Scary ::

[Guest]

From what I have seen, there is just no consideration given to others when Thai's are on the move. You constantly have to deal with those trying to squeeze in before you get out of a sky train or elevator. I calmly wait by the side of the train door for unload and occasionally Thai's get frustrated with that and go around me to start bullying their way in. Pretty much anywhere if a Thai is walking and needs to hesitate for a phone or to think, they just stop in position not caring about those walking behind them. The worst is the escalator dumping people out and someone at the bottom hesitates causing people behind them to get log jammed and have to dance around them with nowhere to go. Puzzling why people don't give just a little consideration. I don't think they are trying to be rude, they just don't know any better.

 

The most annoying has to be when the cutters jump to the front of the line when I'm waiting for something. My most recent example is I was next in line waiting for a copy machine to copy 2 pages of my passport. So this Thai woman maybe 40 goes straight up next to rather than behind me as if I wasn't there. Now I had both barrels loaded because I have had it with this. So I flash my passport and say to the copier in Thai that I need copies in clear view of this woman. She ignores it. Then the guy finishes so what happens, of course she tries to squeeze me out and hand her docs to the copy guy despite my outstretched hand. Amazingly, I get a break and the copy person actually takes mine first and the woman becomes angry and says she doesn't understand this to the copier who ignores her. I then turn to her and say in Thai politely I was there longer than her. She just shakes her head with an expression that says this is the worst injustice she has ever suffered! Where are Thai?s getting attitudes like this???

 

[Guest]

S,

 

This is wierd. ::

I was going to put up a similar thread today

Everytine I go to Central it's worse as once they reach the bottom they need to decide if they are going left or right ::

 

You should add to this about how to enter and exit the BTS trains. ::

 

 

 

[Guest]

 

 

You sound like your talking about Thais needing some sort of a SOCIAL ORDER CAMPAGIN to learn how to behave

 

Don't they have something like this already ::

 

No wait that is just for us Farangs

 

 

 

[crofty68]

there are plenty of places in the world that are regimented & have

a proscribed set of rules on hgow to live every moment of your life

Thailand would not be Thailand were it not for the lackadaisical

way things are done..gotta love it surely ..haha i understand the frustration..

[UAL875]

Good stuff. I was going to write about Japanese protocol/idiosyncrasies in the subway or on elevators at some point but, quite frankly, it wouldn't be as enjoyable and entertaining as your narrative. Thanks.

[Guest]

There is an old saying. Those with the sharpest elbows get the fastest service. I learned this in Italy years ago. I was at a bank and I was just about to hand my passport to the clerk when a guy just elbowed in and got served ahead of me. So I adopted this practice, and suprisingly most Italians took it in stride. But I must say every so often I felt sorry for the Brit's

Just cueing up and waiting forever, because everyone kept butting in line. The total sense of anarcy that seems to pervade LOS is a source of constant amazement to me.

[chilli13]

so true so true

all about queing culture or lack off - just adapt to the country your in & you'll be fine

[Tiger Moth]

Regarding your experiences with people cutting in front of you, I had a similar experience last year when visiting Pattaya. Since my cultural training in New York City has been to "stand your ground", "be assertive", "don't let people step on you", I made an apparent Thai "faux pas". When the woman cut in front of me and the store clerk started to take care of her, I told the clerk, in an annoyed tone, that I was first. I also turned to the woman and said, "you cut in front of me".

 

Both the woman cutter and the store clerk gave me angry, dirty looks as if I was in the wrong. While I don't understand, it seems that somehow I acted incorrectly. Is this because I am a farang? Is the cultural rule, whoever gets to the counter first is first, no matter how they got there first?

 

I still don't know the proper behavior for the person "cut out".