I, commuter
Blog 6 September 2006: Wednesday.
I have been a full-fledged commuter for three days now. As of as of Monday, I am leaving behind my car and taking the LRT (Light Rail Transport) to work. At first, I could not put my finger on it but there is something about taking the train to work that makes it seems more pleasant than driving. As I looked out the train window this morning, I saw the road in front of the National Bank: the road that I took every morning to work and it was jammed up. It occurred to me that last week, I was in that jam. That was what the charm! The joy of being able to say, “That could have been me”.
Being in close quarters with so many people allows you the occasional insight into human character. The train is like a traveling pod that housed many cocoons spun out of invisible tread. In this pod, the domestic individual metamorphed into the corporate worker, or the government servant or the tradesman’s assistant and the tradesman himself. They stand or sit on the train wrapped in their cocoon of invisible tread pretending to be oblivious of others around them. The general semanticists’ third premise, the principle of self-reflexivity, says that what you say of do tells more about yourself than about object of your talk or actions. In the case of the people, I see around me on the train, myself included perhaps, what we choose to wear and the way we behave when confronted with stimuli often shed so much light on who we are inside our cocoons.
There was a young woman on this afternoon’s train. She was clutching an Isetan plastic bag, possibly to show that she goes there to get the products that enhance her comeliness because looking at her face it was obvious that her looks was of great importance to her. The choice of the plastic bag was interesting because she was heading not away from Isetan but across it and away from it. Here was a young woman who possibly craves attention but was afraid of it judging from the way she seemed uncomfortable being looked at.
There was an office worker whose office ID, the train card and his thumbdrive all hung from a shiny plastic lanyard from his neck. Possibly a man who would like to see himself as a little different from others: others whose lanyard bore company names and made of cloth.
There was a tourist couple, painfully aware that they stuck out like a sore thumb in the crowd of skins of various shades of brown. These were modern day explorers trying to find their way across this uncharted city; turning their map this way and that way trying to place the Masjid Jamek they had just passed on the map they had in their hand. I wondered if part of them was not as kind as where the wilderness was in this sea of civility.
There was a woman sitting beside me, engrossed in a magazine that seemed devoted to an ex-fiancée of some guy who won a popularity contest on television where they made belief that it was about talent. I sneaked a look or two and I noticed that the magazine was practically devoted to pictures of the ex-fiancée who donned colorful dresses and posed demurely. The woman seems to enjoy this magazine, perhaps it fed some of her fantasies: that of coming from a modest back ground and making it big. A magazine practically devoted to someone whose sole claim to fame is being once betrothed to someone who became famous; the concept made little sense to me.
There was a man talking to someone on his handphone. He gave instructions for the person on the other hand to go somewhere and fix something. The man made a promise to see someone at nine the next day. I think he mentioned a ‘Dato’ somewhere I the conversation. That, of course, didn’t really mean anything much.
Learn more about commuting in KL, go to http://www.rapidkl.com.my/
I have been a full-fledged commuter for three days now. As of as of Monday, I am leaving behind my car and taking the LRT (Light Rail Transport) to work. At first, I could not put my finger on it but there is something about taking the train to work that makes it seems more pleasant than driving. As I looked out the train window this morning, I saw the road in front of the National Bank: the road that I took every morning to work and it was jammed up. It occurred to me that last week, I was in that jam. That was what the charm! The joy of being able to say, “That could have been me”.
Being in close quarters with so many people allows you the occasional insight into human character. The train is like a traveling pod that housed many cocoons spun out of invisible tread. In this pod, the domestic individual metamorphed into the corporate worker, or the government servant or the tradesman’s assistant and the tradesman himself. They stand or sit on the train wrapped in their cocoon of invisible tread pretending to be oblivious of others around them. The general semanticists’ third premise, the principle of self-reflexivity, says that what you say of do tells more about yourself than about object of your talk or actions. In the case of the people, I see around me on the train, myself included perhaps, what we choose to wear and the way we behave when confronted with stimuli often shed so much light on who we are inside our cocoons.
There was a young woman on this afternoon’s train. She was clutching an Isetan plastic bag, possibly to show that she goes there to get the products that enhance her comeliness because looking at her face it was obvious that her looks was of great importance to her. The choice of the plastic bag was interesting because she was heading not away from Isetan but across it and away from it. Here was a young woman who possibly craves attention but was afraid of it judging from the way she seemed uncomfortable being looked at.
There was an office worker whose office ID, the train card and his thumbdrive all hung from a shiny plastic lanyard from his neck. Possibly a man who would like to see himself as a little different from others: others whose lanyard bore company names and made of cloth.
There was a tourist couple, painfully aware that they stuck out like a sore thumb in the crowd of skins of various shades of brown. These were modern day explorers trying to find their way across this uncharted city; turning their map this way and that way trying to place the Masjid Jamek they had just passed on the map they had in their hand. I wondered if part of them was not as kind as where the wilderness was in this sea of civility.
There was a woman sitting beside me, engrossed in a magazine that seemed devoted to an ex-fiancée of some guy who won a popularity contest on television where they made belief that it was about talent. I sneaked a look or two and I noticed that the magazine was practically devoted to pictures of the ex-fiancée who donned colorful dresses and posed demurely. The woman seems to enjoy this magazine, perhaps it fed some of her fantasies: that of coming from a modest back ground and making it big. A magazine practically devoted to someone whose sole claim to fame is being once betrothed to someone who became famous; the concept made little sense to me.
There was a man talking to someone on his handphone. He gave instructions for the person on the other hand to go somewhere and fix something. The man made a promise to see someone at nine the next day. I think he mentioned a ‘Dato’ somewhere I the conversation. That, of course, didn’t really mean anything much.
Learn more about commuting in KL, go to http://www.rapidkl.com.my/
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