Not too long ago l attended one semester of an American culture class where l have met people pretty much from all over the world. One day we were talking about public transportation in New York city – the trains, subways, buses. The 24 hours system is great and the fact that you can count on it even with its delays or wierd things going on is even greater. And because we are living in a huge city we are spending a lot of time riding the subway trains or buses. To kill this time some how, people are reading books/ e-books, articles on their phones or watching videos/movies, listening music etc anything to make the time fly quicker ….people are resting their eyes or even napping – that’s a “normality” that l like. BUT some other people are on their phones speaking with someone else while actually they are yelling , screaming or talking loud enough to bother others! And on top of that they have the other person on speaker and basically you are overhearing the entire conversation like you are interested in strangers life stories ….Not to mention people who are face-timing or video calling their bodies while they are in the bus/train car/ indoor station etc. Why would somebody want to be seen in the background or to listen what you, guys, have to say to each other ??? It does not make any sense! Nobody wants to speak in private or to keep secrets anymore! Are we losing our sense of privacy and we all feel the need to be seen and heard not to keep anything for ourselves ?! Why is that ???
Now going back to my initial statement…why l mentioned my class discussion about public transportation? Well, because a girl from Tokyo told us that in Japan it is a law that does not allow people to answer their phones or to make phone calls while they are inside a closed space like train cars or buses. Wow! That means to me the highest level of respect for everybody around us in order do not disturb or bother people by making noise in public spaces …If we embraced the globalization so much why don’t we do this law a global one, applicable all over the world ???
Express Yourself 