Younger generation lacks graciousness

I am a 68-year-old who wishes to add to Ms Charlotte Ashton's observations ("'Massive compassion deficit' in S'pore?"; Sunday).

On Sunday night, I boarded a train at Potong Pasir station.

Unable to find a seat, I stood by the train door next to a reserved seat occupied by an elderly woman.

At Serangoon station, a woman seated three seats away stood up to alight from the train.

As I walked towards the empty seat, a young woman rushed past me and sat down, all the while playing a game on her mobile phone.

The elderly woman on the reserved seat quickly stood up and offered her seat to me.

All this while, the young woman just continued playing her game.

In another instance, during the morning rush hour, I was sitting on a reserved seat when a pregnant woman entered the train at Hougang station.

A foreign worker quickly stood up and offered his seat to her. But a well-dressed young woman who was playing a game on her phone quickly took the seat, and I had to offer my seat to the pregnant woman.

In these two incidents, the other passengers just kept quiet even though they were aware of the situation.

It seems that foreign workers and senior citizens know how to be gracious, but not our younger generation.

Richard Chin Koon Fong

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