Apathetic Malaysian

I was on the escalator with my family. Suddenly I noticed something wrong with the young man at the end of the escalator. He had reached the end, but yet he was just standing there.

When I reached him, I noticed his problem. This young man, probably 13 years old of age, had his shoe lace stuck at the end of escalator. As we all know, teenage boy is not used to stress, just as this young man.

He is overwhelmed by this situation. He tried frantically to pull his shoe up, to no avail. His face is full of terror, if you can call it that.

What shocked me was the apathetic attitude of everyone. They just walked past him, as if he didn’t exist. Some even gave him unfriendly stare, as ‘why did you block my way’. I agree this was not a life threatening situation. Even then, was it so hard to help another human being? It would not even cost them two minutes of their precious time.

We stop beside this young man, ready to offer our help. At this moment, his mother turned up. Looking at her boy’s situation, she began tugging at the shoe lace.

My wife offered: “Maybe you should just cut the shoe lace off”.

The lady manage to get a pair of scissors out of her shopping bag. She tried frantically to reach the boy’s foot while all other people are pushing past her.

I advised: ” There is a red button at the buttom. Just press on it to stop the escalator.”

The boy immediately reached down to press the button. The escalator stop as expected. What a relieve!

The shoe lace was removed with ease.

After that, the family just leave the scene. They didn’t even bother to find a way to restart the escalator. Hey, is this typical Malaysian attitude? You don’t have to be responsible for your own action?

I tried looking for a security guard to inform him of the situation. Before I can locate one, I saw that young man turn up again at the escalator, trying to press the button to restart the it. Good boy!