The Sudden Jerk on the MRT Train

I get on the train today at the Taipei Zoo MRT Station. It's the terminal station, so there's always a train waiting, and always a free seat. Sometimes, the train is about to leave, but Taiwanese people rarely make a mad rush through the closing train doors, like a lot of Americans do. They just wait for the next train, which is in five minutes.

So, if I see the train is about to depart, I learn from my fellow MRT patrons, and relax. I know another train will be arriving in five minutes. So Confucian. So Dao.

Well, after my relaxing, Daoist walk in the MRT station, I get on the train. It is noon and sunlight permeates the car. I sit down and notice a young family of four sitting on my left. Mother and young son are sitting facing father and toddler daughter, who is standing up on the hard, yellow plastic seat near the window. Her father is turned around, staring blankly toward the back of the car. I wonder about him. What is he thinking about?

The kids are wearing greenish stone amulets around their necks, probably Buddhist, that their parents surely bought to protect them.

A high-pitched sound interrupts announces that the doors are closing, and they do. Suddenly, the train jerks forward and I watch, horrified, as the little girl goes flying head first onto the car floor, which is made of hard rubber. She starts crying, and her mother, with the reflexes of someone who is used to picking up crying little children, quickly collects her.

The mother looks at the father. I imagine that in her head she is saying (in Taiwanese of course): "You're sitting right next to her. She's not supposed to fly head-first onto the floor when the train starts moving, you putz." How do you say putz in Taiwanese?

Mom sends the little girl to her father to care and comfort her. However, father astutely notices that after five seconds, the little girl is still crying. With an air of frustration, he turns the little girl around, and says, "Go, sit over there with your mother."

As if to express solidarity, the boy, who has been sitting next to his mother watching the whole ordeal, gets up to sit next to his Dad. He's smirking a little, as you would expect most seven year-old boys to respond in this situation. Is he smirking because his sister just fell, or because he knows his Dad is a shmuck and is pretending that he's not? Kids are pretty smart, you know.

The girl is now in her mom's lap, and mom is now tending to her daughter, comforting her with words, stroking her forehead. The tears stream down her little face.

I look at the Dad. He still looks upset, which I am pretty sure is just a front for his embarrassment. He is looking away from his wife and his daughter. Not at anything in particular, though, just more looking into space. Thinking of his job, thinking of his next vacation.

I am thinking all of the above, when I begin to feel compassion for this man. I realize that it probably isn't easy being a Dad. Working long hours, telling kids to shut up. No time for the hobbies he loved as a young man, like taekwondo or Chinese chess.

Suddenly, as if someone has just removed the battery to the MP3 player in my brain, my thoughts stop. I notice the mom stroking her daughter's forehead, notice the girl still clinging to her mother, still crying a little.

We pass several stations, and there are no thoughts of shmucks or overworked dads, just paying attention to my surroundings. On a train filled with Taiwanese people in Taiwan. I look outside and see the ugly apartment buildings of Taipei. The doors open. A teenager gets on. An old lady gets on.

Finally, the train stops at Zhongxiao Fuxing, the main transfer station, and the family on my left stand up to get off the train. The mother picks the girl up and gives her to Dad to carry her.

The little girl clings to her Dad, and they step off the train.