Why is everyone so afraid of sitting on the white tiles?
Taiwan News
Date: 2017/05/29
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer
TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Despite the throngs of passengers in the main hall of Taipei
Everybody is playing it safe and staying on the black tiles at Taipei Station.(By Taiwan News)
Main Station around noon Monday at the peak of the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, no one seems to be willing to break the unspoken taboo of sitting on the white tiles, instead preferring to play it safe and stay on the black tiles.
Reminiscent of a photo that went viral a few months ago of the same situation, for some inexplicable reason, there seems to be an unspoken understanding among the vast majority of passengers in Taipei Main Station that sitting on the white tiles is a no-no.
Explanations by netizens for this odd behavior have included: the color black being less conspicuous, which makes people feel safe; the color white being easier to get dirty than black, thus less guilt about sitting on the black tiles; and one theory posits that no one sits on the white tiles because the color white symbolizes death in Chinese culture. Whatever the reason, most people seem to always bet on black.
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