[MLBW]

I think many people in Hong Kong lack spatial awareness and manners--not just on the MTR and buses. I was also very rarely offered a seat while traveling on the MTR when heavily pregnant. And usually when someone offered me a seat, it was an old man or woman who needed the seat more than I did. I often see young people playing their video games on the MTR, totally oblivious to anyone around them. When they do see people in need it doesn't register that the right thing to do is help them.

When my infant son was about 3 months old my husband and I were on a long, crowded bus ride from HK Island to the New Territories. My husband was holding our son when all of a sudden a woman standing in the aisle crumpled--she had passed out. Although there were several able-bodied middle-aged men standing around her, none of them, when seeing her go down moved to help her--so my husband, while seated, reached out his arm to break her fall--meanwhile still holding our 3-month old son. The men just went back to talking on their mobile phones. My husband figured they were calling an ambulance or something but they weren't. So, having been pregnant and having had to cart my son around via MTR (we don't own a car) as a baby, I have become intensely aware of how baby unfriendly and disabled unfriendly this city is.

This past week I was in the Central MTR station and a bunch of able-bodied people crowded right in front of a old man in a wheelchair being pushed by his elderly companion--rushing ahead to get on the lift and making him squeeze his way in later. On top of this many of the stations are not handicap friendly--some of the older ones only have stairs and no lifts--or stairs in odd places that make for some heavy lifting. I can't imagine being wheel-chair bound in this city.

It does not surprise me that Hong Kong often ranks high on the list of rudest cities in the world.