I can’t remember the last time I was speechless but today I was stunned into silence by an 87 year old woman I found on the metro system in Nanjing.
Picture the scene. I had just had an unsuccessful trip to Wagas to see if I could locate the glasses I lost yesterday and was heading to BurgerKing to get a very unhealthy lunch (a rare treat). Underground by the ticket office there was a very small bent old lady pulling a wheelie bag and looking around. She approached a youg man to ask directions and he pointed into the distance. I watched her move slowly along the concourse, wrapped up against the cold with hat, scarf and gloves and shuffling her large booted feet towards the barriers. She stopped several times to look around and seemed not to know where she was going.
I felt sorry for her so I decided to try to help her. It’s a risk as the chances are that little old ladies in Nanjing are often not very good at standard Chinese and speak Nanjing dialect instead – something which I cannot understand. However, watching her shuffling along pulling her bag and looking lost I decided I should try to help no matter the consequences. I walked towards her, bent down very low and ask her in Chinese where she wanted to go to.
She stopped, looked up at me and said in slow clear English “I’m going to Gulou Square. Where are you going?”. Stunned, I took a few steps back and stared at this lady – speechless. When I had gathered myself together we had a lovely 10 minute chat in which she told me she had come into the city centre to go to a talk given by medical representatives who wanted her to trial a new drug. She talked briefly about the Cultural Revolution and that she had been an English teacher.
After a while I was bending down so slow that my back began to hurt and I had to stand up straight which made talking to her logisitically difficult. So we agreed to meet again in a few weeks and have a good natter over a coffee.
Life in Nanjing can throw up all manner of surprises each day.