The big smile said it all

My dad, who passed away six years ago, was one of the most affable people you can imagine. When I was a kid, he used to mortify me by striking up conversations with total strangers everywhere.

Parents' quirks often surface in their children, of course so eventually, as an adult, I found myself doing the same thing. Just ask my kids; they'll tell you how I constantly embarrass them by chatting with people I've never met before and may never see again in elevators, in line for movie tickets, at the grocery store.

A freelance photographer, my dad faced subjects ranging from diplomats and corporate executives to artists, athletes, fishermen and factory workers, so his ability to get along with everybody served him well. At bottom, though, it was not utilitarian purpose that gave rise to his friendliness; it was a profoundly democratic attitude that made him converse as easily with a US senator as with a janitor.

I'd actually been pathologically shy as a child, but once I started work as a newspaper reporter, my inheritance became second nature. After all, much of journalism's raw material comes from listening to strangers. And sometimes the best stories and sources come from serendipitous encounters on the street.

While my days of daily reporting are past, my journalistic habits persist, and I continue to find chance encounters a source of endless fascination. Now that I'm back in Beijing for a couple of months, however, chatting with strangers takes on new dimensions that I don't always welcome.

On the one hand, if I initiate the interaction, typically with a request for directions, I get gleeful reactions to my Beijing-inflected Mandarin Chinese. On the other hand, Chinese who notice this middle-aged casually dressed woman with dirty-blond hair and green eyes wandering a subway platform or a department store may well seize a chance to practice their English.

Being a sounding board for a language learner is not always my idea of fun. If I'm tired, distracted, or in a bad mood, or if the speaker seems to be talking at me rather than to me and doesn't catch what I say ever-so-slowly in response, I'm seldom inclined to carry on. I prefer two-way communication, for what is a conversation if not an exchange?

An incident last week, however, reminded me that crossing paths with strangers has its own rewards. I was waiting to board the light rail when a fellow with shaggy graying hair wheeled by on one of those folding mini-bikes. "American?" he asked in English. When I said yes, he gave me a big gap-toothed smile and pedaled on.

Half an hour later, he passed me on his bike in the street; evidently we'd disembarked at the same station. He halted to give me a hearty greeting before cycling on. In another 15 minutes, as I was walking on a college campus, there he was again, rounding a corner. He told me he was visiting an uncle who worked there. Again, he cycled off.

On each occasion, I got another smile. I didn't feel like a lesson plan. I felt like we were old friends.

(China Daily 03/29/2007 page20)