The Kindness of Strangers

So it's been a while - this whole "diary" thing is not really my bag (baby), but I really should make more of an effort. I feel particularly guilty about being remiss when I read my friend Jade's wonderful entries on her blog - not only is she managing to update regularly, she's updating about the interesting, exciting, Earth-saving life she's living! Puts me to shame, I assure you.

So, even though I don't have anything particular to post about, I'm a-gonna.

In a big city like Hong Kong, it's rare to make a connection with someone you don't know. I've lived in my flat for six or seven weeks now. I've seen my next-door neighbour (the adult female member of the household) once - yesterday - and we issued a mutually muttery "Morning" before sharing the lift in silence down 37 floors. I haven't seen any of the other members of the household - although I think I caught sight of a male arm closing a window the other night. There are another seven flats on my floor, and I have seen neither hair nor hide of any of the inhabitants.

Such is city life. I lived in my last flat for six years. I spoke to the French chef maybe three times and his HK wife maybe five. When they left, I saw and said hello to my HK female neighbour maybe 10 times in two years. On the day I moved out, I had a 20-minute conversation in broken English/non-existent Cantonese about house prices and whether my soon-to-be-former landlords would be interested in selling to my soon-to-be-former neighbours. While I know it's partly my fault for a) not learning to speak Cantonese in my 13+ years here and b) just the HK way, sometimes I miss the small talk enjoyed in smaller towns by neighbours.

Mind you, I'm not a particular fan of strangers. I never strike up conversations to my neighbour on the bus. Should I find myself needing to share a table in a coffee shop, I always have a convenient book to avoid the need for comment. If someone deigns to talk to me in a bar when I'm waiting for friends, my well-rehearsed withering glare sends them cowering back to the corner.

Friendly, right?

But there are times when I'm just so agreeably surprised by the unexpected pleasantries of a stranger, I realise there is truth in the notion that "there is no such thing as a stranger; it's just a friend you haven't made yet".

Take, for example, this morning. I read on the way to work - the 15-minute train ride and 7-minute walk is a great way to get through my library. I'm currently reading the last installment of Alexander McCall Smith's von Igelfeld Trilogy. Sometimes you need a little light reading. I was just off the train, and a man walked past, clocked the cover and said "They're great, aren't they? Which one is that? Have you read the Number One Ladies' Detective Agency series?" A mini-conversation that had me smiling all the way to work. Naturally I had very little to say, but just randomly exchanging words with someone I didn't know in the middle of the train station - and knowing that's all there was to it - really made my morning.

Another time, a couple of months back, I was killing time wandering around the streets near the bar I was due to meet friends (I don't know why I went through a phase of being early for everything!). Lost in my book - it could have been the brilliant Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - a dog-walking woman approached me and asked if I was in a book club. We had a very pleasant 5-minute chat about books, reading, buying books in Hong Kong, and then we went off on our separate ways, not changed in any way, not really learning anything about ourselves or each other, but having just enjoyed an unexpected conversation that made life a little brighter.

These little exchanges remind me that, as the saying goes, no man is an island.

One further reminiscence before the off. A couple of years ago, I was on the MTR - and just a reminder, the MTR is the transport system that should exist in every major city, it's clean, fast, frequent, efficient, brightly-lit and safe - standing reading. One minute I was standing up, the next minute I was on my back, having apparently passed out. The reaction was astonishing: far from the usual and expected disinterest, three people helped me up while another couple gave up their seats amd helped me sit.

At the end of the day, while you may not become best friends with your next-door neighbour or strike up conversation with and eventually marry that random stranger you occasionally bump into at Starbucks, we're all here, we're all people, we all need conversation. And giving a little smile or comment or compliment never hurt anyone.

In fact, you might just make someone's day.