Elderly seating on subways questioned

Just a few weeks ago, a middle school student kicked an old man down the stairs to his death for having criticized the young student for not yielding a seat on a subway train. Since then the homepages of the Seoul Metropolitan Subway Corp. and the Seoul Metropolitan Rapid Transit Corp. have been flooded with suggestions concerning designated seats for the elderly.

One young man responded under the title, "Small but unavoidable violence."

"If we were to consider sexual assault and misconduct on women as the number one problem on the subways, the number two problem would be the ruthless verbal attack by the elderly on the young,¡± he wrote. ¡°The designated seats for the elderly are the source of much personal verbal attacks that condemns young men as those who have utterly missed proper home education concerning age."

An elderly man of 74 wrote that he had once been greatly humiliated after asking a young man to yield a seat. "Either the designated seats for the elderly should be done away with or those who violate it charged criminally," he wrote.

In Seoul alone, there are about 5.2 million people who utilize the subway system daily. The number is much greater nationwide. With such scuffles concerning seats rising daily, the quality of city life cannot but deteriorate.

In the case of Canada or some nations in Europe, non-elderly people are banned from seating in the elderly-designated seats on buses or subways. Even though the seats might be empty, the young men and women do not sit in them. In Japan, such verbal reprimands by the elderly are rarely seen.

"We really can't consider sitting in the elderly designated seats as being criminal,¡± a source at the Seoul Metropolitan Subway Corp. said. ¡°We can only hope for a more responsible attitude among the people as members of this society."

min07@donga.com