Screen from the JFK AirTrain ticket kiosk .
I have been traveling the AirTrain to JFK for this past year and recently noticed the "language" screen on the Airtrain ticket kiosk. As seen in the image above, there are eight rectangles organized in a tic tac toe fashion, with one lonley spot needing to be filled. What can I say? The symmetry Gods got the better of me.
.
They have English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Italian, Chinese (sorry I cannot tell if it is Mandarin or Cantonese) and Korean. What happened to Hindi? South Asians constitute 3.5% of New York City's population and there are a lot of frugal South Asians travelling the AirTrain these days. Just this morning there was a large group of Gujrati people chatting away.
I have been traveling the AirTrain to JFK for this past year and recently noticed the "language" screen on the Airtrain ticket kiosk. As seen in the image above, there are eight rectangles organized in a tic tac toe fashion, with one lonley spot needing to be filled. What can I say? The symmetry Gods got the better of me.
.
They have English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Italian, Chinese (sorry I cannot tell if it is Mandarin or Cantonese) and Korean. What happened to Hindi? South Asians constitute 3.5% of New York City's population and there are a lot of frugal South Asians travelling the AirTrain these days. Just this morning there was a large group of Gujrati people chatting away.
.
JFK being a gateway for international travelers to the United States and New York City, one would think that they could accomodate South Asia which only makes up 1/8 of the world's population?
Maybe the Port Authority of New York/New Jersey forgot their numerous South Asian engineer, colleagues when they developed the list? They may have assumed that South Asians speak English pretty well due to all thier conversations with South Asian call centers and decided to exclude them?
.
I think the empty spot should be filled with something. Maybe even a welcome note? Hindi could be a nice touch. The addition of the Hindi script would enhance the layout of the screen and add a bit more diversity. It would also make the language screen portray New York City as the multicultural metropolis that it is.
.
Maybe the Port Authority of New York/New Jersey forgot their numerous South Asian engineer, colleagues when they developed the list? They may have assumed that South Asians speak English pretty well due to all thier conversations with South Asian call centers and decided to exclude them?
.
I think the empty spot should be filled with something. Maybe even a welcome note? Hindi could be a nice touch. The addition of the Hindi script would enhance the layout of the screen and add a bit more diversity. It would also make the language screen portray New York City as the multicultural metropolis that it is.
.
Well at least we got Alternate side parking rules suspended for Diwali, in New York City. My non-Desi friends that own automobiles in this city thank me on Diwali. It's funny that they will remember Diwali, because they don't have to move their cars on that day.
No comments:
Post a Comment