上班族必備軟實力

*Richard, who has been in Taiwan for a long time, likes to ride escalators, but should get some exercise by walking more often.

The longest escalator in Taiwan rises from 3 stories below ground and goes up to 3 stories above ground. It is at the Zhongxiao Fuxing MRT station, where it goes from an underground line to an aboveground line. It takes more than 2 minutes to travel on it without walking. Before that, the longest escalator in Taiwan was at the Fancyworld amusement park in Yunlin county. (Those escalators are outside.)

There are escalators that have humps in them.

From using escalators in the MRT it is clear that people are supposed to stand on the right side and leave a space for others to walk on the left. There are signs to that effect, but I wonder if this also applies to escalators in department stores. Shoppers may not be in a hurry like some commuters are.

In other countries, like Hong Kong, they expect you to stand on the left side. It may be because they drive on that side. Usually the outgoing escalator is on the right side, and the incoming to the left, but sometimes it is reversed. There doesn’t seem to be any clear standards here. They should try to keep it more consistent.

If the electricity ever goes out, you could be stuck on the escalator for a long time if you don’t start to walk, but walking on an escalator that is not moving is an unnerving experience. It must be a psychological reaction to the fact that we are used to having the thing move. Walking up or down a moving escalator is no problem, but when it is stopped it is just plain weird.

Of course, I could go on and on about escalators, (like how do they get the handrail to move at the same speed as the stairs) but since space is limited, I will close here. I will be gliding in again soon. Thank you for reading.

【作者介紹】

Richard 是一位台灣女婿，在台灣生活15年，喜愛台灣文化，以風趣幽默的文筆，細膩獨特的觀點，介紹在台灣生活的趣事，一起跟著Richard探訪外國人的台灣世界吧！