A First for Everything

Today I was walking, on my way to the MRT station, passing Mackay Hospital. A young woman saw me and asked me for directions to an address nearby. Granted, this is a bustling place, with locals young and old coming and going, and taxi drivers waiting at the curb for their next fares.

Unshaven, baggy jeans, sporting my foreignness, I was taken aback -- she chose to ask ME, in Chinese mind you, for directions! She wasn't a foreigner looking for a friendly English speaker to help her out. She didn't ask my name or number, or anything else about me. Judging by her accent, she wasn't an overseas Chinese either. She was Taiwanese, and she asked me, of all the people moving about and standing around, to give her directions. In Chinese. Talk about irony...