MANILA, Philippines - You can find most of life in the New York City subway: the heartwarming and bizarre; images of Marxism; the élan of capitalism; beauty and pain. Not everyone reacts the same way to what they see. For some the evening rush hour is a brutal experience, with people packed so tight together they cannot even turn around or lift a hand to scratch an itchy nose for fear that the lady squeezed in front may misinterpret the move. People of all races, sexes, economic status are pushed together, literally closer to anyone in their lives except family members. Most people hate the experience, but the Afro-American poet Langston Hughes saw the crush of people as a symbol of human solidarity and wrote: “Mingled / breath and smell / so close / mingled / black and white / so near / no need for fear.” (“Subway Rush Hour”)

There is much that is enjoyable. There are young singers and dancers who perform in the subway cars for a few coins, saxophone players at night and young violinists from the Julliard School of Music, all trying to earn a little and get by—like everyone on the train. If you like to watch children, you have the kids of 100 nations with nothing to do but laugh if you make a face at them, especially the very young ones just learning to walk and for whom falling down on their bottoms seems to be as much fun as eating sweets.

One night my wife and I listened to an old black man, a stand-up comedian of the subway. It went something like this: “I live here in the subway, so don’t throw paper on the floor. Don’t mess up. Why am I here? I’ll tell you, I’m hiding from my wife. Don’t tell her you saw me. If you saw her, you’d understand why I’m here. What a woman! What a voice!” He had the whole car laughing, though maybe the men laughed more than the women.

There are sad things, too. On the early morning “D” train to the Bronx, the passengers are nearly all black. They’re big men in old work clothes and heavy shoes, coming home after a night’s work of cleaning, carrying things, unloading trucks or doing other heavy, low-paying jobs. They sprawl out in the seats or sleep, and never talk to one another. Often scattered among the men are a few middle-aged black women. They, too, have finished work, cleaning offices, or washing up in restaurants, but they don’t sprawl or sleep, just stare straight ahead. This is the permanent black underclass of the city, poorly paid and largely unskilled. They head home to the Bronx, the most rundown part of the city.

Bad things happen. People are robbed, mugged, molested and frightened. You see men threatening women. Once, a carload of us watched a young Hispanic threaten the girl with him. She didn’t agree to do what he wanted, so he shoved her hard against the side of the train and she began to cry. Everyone watched, compassionately it seemed, as if they all knew about bad treatment. “Don’t go with him, don’t go,” they seemed to say to the girl.

Every beggar gets something in the subway; almost any appeal will do. Nearly every older woman gets a seat from a young person. There are also authentic heroes. There was a black man who saw a Hispanic fall on to the tracks and even with the train rushing into the station, jumped down and forced the man to lie with him between the tracks. The train roared safely just inches over their heads.

If there is an underclass on the “D” train, there is also on the morning “E,” “F” and “A” trains rushing into Manhattan from Queens and Brooklyn, the upcoming middle class, the bright, aggressive young people of all races hurrying to their offices or schools, full of dreams of great success and wealth. They are of all races and cultures, speaking 70 languages; yet they dress the same, carry the same newspaper, seek the same goals. They are perhaps a shade more cocky than young people elsewhere.

Does the subway influence the New Yorker character? Does it not only make people cockier, but also more tolerant of human weakness, less tolerant of arrogance; does it somehow put people on the side of the underdog? Do the long, silent hours in the subway drive people to write, paint, play an instrument, draw graffiti, compose?

There are no elite in the subway; it belongs to the ordinary people. No one, not even among the on-the-move young people, is far from poverty, in their own lives or in that of their families.

When it’s time to get off the train and begin the long climb to the street up the equivalent of four or five flights of stairs, the young people move quickly ahead. Then come the older people moving slowly, heads down. Hughes has another poem about them: It’s about a black grandmother talking to her grandson. “Well son, I’ll tell you / life for me ain’t been no crystal staircase / But all the time / I’ve been climbin’ on / and reachin’ landin’s / And turnin’ corners / And sometimes goin’ in the dark / Where there ain’t no light / So, son, don’t you turn back on me.” (“Mother to Son”)

Life in the subway calls for an eye for the good, compassion for those with problems, and tolerance for everyone. Not a bad prescription for life itself. Do we have such Filipino images of life?

Denis Murphy works with the Urban Poor Associates. His email address is upa@pldtdsl.net.