Random acts of helping the dumbass foreigner

My guardian angel wore artfully faded knockoff jeans, a Chinglish-emblazoned T-shirt and had her hair in a henna-dyed bob.

"Do you need help?" she asked--in English, because at that point I wouldn't have been able to comprehend even a phrase as simple as that in Mandarin.

I was bent over a sorry excuse for a bicycle, hands covered in grease, face covered in that grimy sheen the city's polluted humidity brings out in wimpy Westerners. I have a feeling those factors, plus the glassy look in my eyes, made it pretty evident I either needed a hand or a dose of valium and a Tsing Tao. Maybe two.

"Um, yeah."

She put down her handbag, flipped the bike over, quickly assessed the damage--a derailed chain and wonky sprocket, apropos of absolutely nothing I had done to the infernal machine, I swear--pulled out a tissue to protect her fingers and ever-so-daintily straightened the sprocket, slipped the chain back on, rotated the pedals a few times and flipped the bike back upright.

I gawked. She handed me a tissue for my fingers. Smiled.

"OK?"

"Um. Yeah. Thanks so much--xie xie."

She picked up her purse and sauntered off, high heels clicking.

The one good thing about having been completely ripped off purchasing a two-bit bicycle whose chain snapped in two literally 15 minutes after I pedalled away is that it has made patently clear just how nice a lot of people are. Twice since the chain snapped and I got it replaced at one of the ubiquitous ad hoc bike-repair stands that appear magically each morning on every other street corner, this piece of mechanical crap has fallen apart. Twice in that time, passersby have seen my helpless flailing and helped me put the thing back together.

Encroyable. I figure I've banked enough of a karmic debt so far, if I ever get back to Canada I'll have to help every tourist and immigrant I can find. I feel a bit better today after I gave directions to a foreign student even more hapless than myself, but my smug, savvy sentiments were short-lived: I was wandering in circles again five minutes later.

I chalk up part of this kindness to what appears to be a sense of obligation towards foreigners as guests--part of this crazy guanxi/renqing system of social networking and social obligation I actually plan on writing more about when I have time and understand it better. Part of it, though, is that when they aren't trying to run me over, people are just nice. Almost embarrassingly so.

I have, however, made a mental note to look less deshevelled and helpless. That can't be doing much good in the cultural ambassador department.