Amazing Similarity

      How time flies! Our six-month summer session program is drawing to the end: we have come to the middle of the fifth week.

Since we were free this afternoon, Summer and I went shopping ̶ we need buy a suitcase to contain what we bought in America.

We took a bus to Macy’s. On our way there, we saw several teen-age boys sitting in the front of the bus. When a disabled black man walked onto the bus with the help of two canes and passed by the boys, none stood up to offer a seat to him.

This reminded me of what I saw buses in my home country China: some young people didn't give their seats to the old either. What a similar phenomenon in China and America! The difference is that in China the bus is generally crowded and the old did not get a seat in the end, while in America, there are usually vacant seats and the disabled finally got a seat. And we know it is viewed in China as a virtue for young people to give their seats to the old, but we don’t know whether it is a virtue or even acceptable for young people to offer their seats to the disabled.   

On our way back to Yale University, we happened to see the notice on the inside wall of the front bus, which says: “Please make these priority seats available for senior citizens and persons with disabilities who wish to use them.”

What an amazing similarity again between China and America! For in a bus in China, there is also a similar notice on the inside wall of the font bus. What is different is that not only the old and the disabled but also the weak, the sick and the pregnant are given priority to have a seat in a bus.

        It seems that whether in China or in America or perhaps in any other country, people advocate similar virtues.