helping.

I'm the type of person who likes to get their hands dirty and help others out. I think I do a lot less of that here because of the obvious cultural difference, language barrier and general "mind your own business, you foreigner" attitude. Yesterday was different, though, and I have to say it turned out to be a great day despite a lot of annoying other happenings. First, I spent some time doing a work-out with the P.E. teacher from school. It was challenging, free and fun. On my scoot home, I saw this poor little Chinese man with three giant boxes on his crappy scooter which had a flat tire. He was pushing that thing as hard as he could, sweat dripping down his face, wearing wellies from the earlier rain and nice pinstriped business pants with them. I just felt so bad for him. So, I decided to reverse a bit, and try to help him out. He gladly took the help despite my lack of Chinese and I ended up pushing my scooter 1/4 of a mile with a giant box (with who knows what in it) on it for him. He stopped and talked to this other guy and after a lot of yelling (or talking, who knows here), the other motorcycle man agreed to help him. He bowed to me and gave me a very genuine xie-xie (thank you) and I left with a little more pep in my step.

Later that evening, I had to go to the Apple store since the latest iOS update has rendered my phone completely useless. I walk into the mammoth and ridiculous new shopping mall, iapm and give my dirty looks to Prada and Dolce and Gabbana. As I walk towards the directory (yes, this mall actually has a directory!!! China is growing up), I see two white ladies looking at a tour guide book. I decide this is another chance to help someone out. I end up talking to these two German ladies for over an hour about their impressions of China, Europe and all kinds of other fantastic stuff. It was one of those conversations that I walked away from, and thought, why didn't I exchange e-mails with those people, they were lovely. They were also so thankful to talk to someone who understands what it is like to be a foreigner in China and were happy for some restaurant recommendations (vegetarians in China, oh man). 

It was nice to help those people out, and it made my day so much better (and theirs, too!). I'm going to work on keeping my hands dirty in this way.