So here I am in Taiwan for my longest stay in Asia since I was in my late 20s, twenty years ago. In my teens and twenties, I lived in Beijing and in Dalian for periods ranging from a couple of months up to a year at a time and traveled to many other parts of the People’s Republic of China as well. Since 2006, I’ve spent most of my time building an adult life in the US–teaching, raising kids, buying a house and taking root–and have only been back to Asia sporadically for shorter lengths of time. So even though I find myself frequently comparing my experience here with my earlier experiences in China, it’s not clear whether differences reflect differences between culture in Taiwan and on the mainland, or differences between the world of 20 years ago and the world of now, or differences in my own identity and position (I’m no longer a young, single student but am instead a financially stable professional with children). Too many variables.
I will say, however, that one of the things that strikes me as quite different from my earlier impressions of mainland China is the sense of order here in Taiwan. Taiwan is a very orderly place, generally speaking. The subway (called the MRT, for Mass Rapid Transit, in English, and jieyun 捷運 in Chinese) is one of the clearest manifestations of that order. On each subway platform there are markings on the floor to indicate where each set of doors will open when the train arrives. Extending out from the markings are lines indicating lanes where people are supposed to wait. People are pretty compliant; they generally queue up in those lanes in the order in which they arrived on the platform.
There is in most subway stations a roughly shoulder-high barrier at the edge of the platform, punctuated by sets of automatic doors that match the locations of the train-car doors when the train arrives. On the glass of the barriers there are signs showing all the stops on the entire route, with the ones coming up after the current station in regular print and the ones the train has gone through on the way to the current station in faded print, to make it clear which direction the train is going.
Above the platform are LED signs indicating how soon the next train will arrive, and TV monitors that estimate how full each car on the incoming train is, so you can line up in front of the doors to a less-crowded car if that’s a priority for you.
When the train is approaching the station, lights at the top of the barrier begin rhythmically flashing and gentle music fills the air. Different subway lines feature different “train coming” music. The train stops precisely where the markings indicate, the doors on the train and the barrier slide open, and the people in line on the platform wait for passengers to get off before boarding the train.
On the train, regular seats are in light blue plastic and priority seats for older people, pregnant women, and disabled people are in dark blue. While I have sometimes seen young and not-obviously-disabled people occupy those dark blue seats (though of course there are many forms of invisible disability), generally people will avoid them and will readily stand up if they see someone in the car who looks like they need a seat more. And it’s pretty common to see the dark blue seats empty even when there are lots of people standing.
After you get off the train, you head for the stairs or the escalator. There is often a bit of a line for the escalator but people are patient about waiting their turn, and super compliant about standing on the right side of the step and walking on the left side. Even when nobody is walking up or down the escalator, the people who are standing keep a left lane clear just in case. When you exit the station, you swipe your card at the turnstile and the amount of the ride is automatically deducted.
The rate of mask-wearing is very high in Taipei in general, and on the subway in particular. My informal impression is that well more than half of the people on the subway are masked, and probably at least 40% of the people you come across in other public spaces. Some people chat quietly, but no one raises their voice and I have never seen anyone talk on the phone in the subway station or on the train. No one plays music or videos (not audibly, anyway), and no one eats or drinks or chews gum. These last things are forbidden on the subway, and maybe talking on the phone is too. In any case, people abide by these rules quite readily. I heard a third-hand story (some friends talking about friends of theirs) about someone who was chewing gum on the subway platform one time, and one of the platform attendants approached him and stuck out his gloved hand under the guy’s chin, gesturing for him to spit it out into the attendant’s hand, which he did reluctantly. There are certainly no in-your-face performers on the train like we experienced in Manhattan this past summer, playing loud music from a boom box, twisting themselves into pretzels and demanding high-fives (I found this kind of charming and exciting; other riders seemed less impressed).
Here’s what constitutes an emergency on the Taipei subway: the other day a woman in the train car Sonja and I were riding in accidentally dropped her water bottle. The plastic smashed with a loud CRACK and water gushed out as she drew in her breath in dismay. Then she calmly went to the door and pushed the emergency intercom button and spoke to the metro officials about what had happened. One stop later, a metro police officer and a woman with a mop got on the car, assessed the situation, and started clearing people out in preparation for mopping up the water. It was all very tidy and undramatic and…orderly.
One of my colleagues who has an eight-year-old daughter says they have accidentally left toys and stuffies on the subway many times, and each time when they return to the station where they got off the train and ask at the service kiosk, invariably someone has turned in the item and it gets handed back to them.
In short, riding the metro in Taipei is about as effortless a public-transit experience as I can imagine. The whole system is so transparent and accessible and well organized that people generally know how long it’s going to take them to get where they’re going. That, combined with a general commitment to rules (tacit and explicit) for common courtesy, makes for a clean, pleasant, calm ride.