I once became hopelessly lost in the city of Chengdu, which is in central China. Getting lost in a city wasn’t anything new to me, I felt this was the only way to really see a city, you only know a place once you need to find your way out of it. None-the-less my wife and I after spending the day just walking anyway we wanted were quite lost, to the point that we couldn’t find where we thought were on a map.

Eventually, I had to ask someone for directions. In the part of the city we were, it was surprisingly quiet. I saw a woman standing near the street waiting to cross. Now, the problem I had was almost no one we met while we were there spoke English, so I wasn’t sure how I was going to ask her for help. I came up behind and said “excuse me” to which she didn’t answer, after the second attempt I walk around her and said “excuse me” again, to which she got a huge fright, I thought she was going to give me a fat slap in the face, but I also saw she was actually on a phone call.

After apologising profusely in some broken Mandarin I learnt while there and walking away, she started shouting at me. Well, it wasn’t shouting as I later discovered but let’s just say talking very loudly and gesturing me to ask what I wanted. So, after showing her the map with an “I don't know where I am” expression. She then put her hand up palm out in a manner telling me to wait, quite sternly.

Next thing, she whips out her phone, makes a call, and starts what sounds like a massive argument with someone on the other side, then suddenly stops and passes me the phone and says quietly sternly “take it” (well that’s what I think she said). I take the phone and say “Hi - my name is Gert”, on the other side is a male voice and in the calmest most perfect English says: “Hi - I’m the brother of the lady you just spoke to, she called me and said it looks like you’re lost. If you can tell me where you’re trying to go, then I can tell her how to help you.” - to which I reply “Thank you very much ..” and proceed to explain where we want to go. He then tells me to hand the phone back to his sister. After handing it back to her, they again proceed to have what I interpret as a huge argument. Once done, shes hands the phone back to me and he proceeds to explain how and where I need to go, to find a taxi and specifically how and to instruct the taxi driver. Thanking him and apologising to have wasted his time. He graciously says he didn’t mind and says it’s not every day his sister calls him in Hong Kong…..

He was in Hong Kong 1650 Km / 1025 Miles away and I’m standing somewhere in Chengdu on the street side next to his sister. After giving her the phone back and saying thanking in Mandarin a few times, her face changes and she flashes me this huge and incredibly warm smile.

See, what I learnt was that often one judges by your cultural norms, and cultures across the globe are quite different. What I had interpreted as cross or angry, even rude was actually just matter-of-fact and what I had interpreted as an argument was what I later learnt, just the exuberant and honest manner in which many Chinese converse. The fact of the matter was this lady had no problem just calling her brother across the country for no other reason than she needed him to help these tourists who look lost.

Don’t judge another culture or as in this case the Chinese in relation to your cultural norms, judge on someone's actions. I backpacked through China from top to bottom (literally) and my general interaction was one of warmth and welcome.