October 13, 2005

Obliviousness

Sometimes I really like the way many Taiwanese can be completely oblivious to what is going on around them and the fact that people look at them because they are behaving strangely. It can seem so disarmingly charming and innocent. In the gym this morning, a young kid felt he needed to work on his dance steps to impress on his girl. He stood in front of a mirror wall making all these crazy moves with his legs to some vapid pop song. He wouldn't stop. I watched him for a while from the machine where I was working out as he kept repeating the same steps, only slightly adjusting his moves as the song changed (a while, btw, is the exact amount of time that you can secretly watch someone without being found out).

And yesterday on the bus on my way to the paper, a man in his 50s with headphones that seemed too big for his head because he was bald directed some symphony orchestra and marked the beat with his shiny head in big, exaggerated nods. Up, down, up, down. He just sat at the front of the bus where everybody could see him, completely lost in his music, head bobbing up and down and hands describing intricate patterns as he directed the orchestra performing in his head.

Then at other times times I really don't like this total obliviousness to the outside world. I don't know how many times I've seen people screaming and shouting over the most minute detail because it didn't suit them, deliberately stripping a person of their last shred of dignity. Very ugly. Or the woman ahead of me at Subway today who held up a long line of really hungry people (at least one) while talking on her mobile and ignoring the girl behind the counter who tried to find out what she wanted. Until, that is, the girl politely said that she would serve me while the woman finished her phone conversation. All of a sudden she heard the girl fine and broke off the conversation with a short "Later."

But maybe this is true of people in any big city with several million people where you eventually stop noticing the mass of people flowing through the streets, subway, department stores, buses.

Crossblog.

Posted by Perry at October 13, 2005 09:47 AM
Comments

Ya totally true. I've lived in Taiwan for the past 7 years, and what you said about normal people here (not crazy, on drugs, etc.) being obliviousness is right on the dot. I still haven't figured out the psychology behind it. But I don't think it's a big city thing, cuz I've lived in 5+ cities (almost all in the US, however) in my life, and the Subway woman type incident only happens here with any frequency.

Posted by: evan at October 27, 2005 08:38 PM