posted by wtanaka at
9/27/2003 09:45:00 PM
When I got to the BART station today, I noticed someone giving directions to someone else -- gesticulating and pointing at the system map. As I approached, it dawned on me that one of them was speaking in Chinese, which was very surprising to me, especially since this was one of the things I had just been talking about with Niniane. I asked him in Chinese where he wanted to go. I hope the previous helper didn't find that rude. The complication was that he wanted to go to San Francisco, and thus needed to transfer, so the instructions were not as simple as "you want this train." I thought I eventually succeeded at explaining where he needed to go (with help from the american guy that knew a lot more about the bart schedule). He even counted the number of stops that he needed to wait before transferring. I was really tickled, with the doubly satisfying feeling of helping someone, and doing it in another language.
So I chatted with him for a while on the train as we waited for its scheduled departure time. Then, seemingly randomly, he just got up and left! I didn't see where he went, so I hope he made it back to San Francisco safely.
Perhaps I didn't succeed at explaining what he needed to do to him. Or perhaps, after listening to me throw chinese words at him for a few minutes, he thought I was too crazy to sit next to.
