schezuanbeancurd.JPG

do you want rice with that bean curd?

Over the last five years I’ve come to the gradual but definite realization that I may be one of those people whose appearance invites random questions, commentary, or conversation.

While in Manila, people have stopped me in the streets, inside office buildings and in restaurants, to ask for directions. This has amused my husband no end, because he’s the native Manileno, but when we’re together, no one ever asks him for directions. I, on the other hand, grew up in Cebu, and have been known to get lost turning wrong corners inside Glorietta.

After the nth time that this happened, I just accepted the possibility that I might have a “helpful aura” – you know, the invsibile equivalent to those giant, lighted arrows you see in banks, floating just a few inches over my head and pointing down with a sign saying “I can help you over here”. That, or I just have that non-intimidating face that says to friends and strangers alike “hey, come ask me for directions or to just say something random/funny/strange”. Truth be told, I’ve gotten so used to it that I don’t really mind it at all.

When we came to the U.S., these incidents have occurred more and more often. I’ve accepted this too as a given, after all, television, the movies, and a few American friends have prepared me to expect Americans to be generally more assertive than many Filipinos when it comes to approaching strangers and starting conversations.

Yes, people still ask me for directions, whether I’m in Florida, New York or the Bay Area. I’ve had strangers I sit with on the bus engage me in conversations about World War II, their disabilities and how they were coping, as well as job opportunities for immigrants. A bus driver gave me a quick history on the real estate boom in the Florida Treasure Coast. Once, someone even asked me where I have my uniform made, while we were both standing in line to get coffee and donuts. I’ve taken all these and the like in stride and in good humor.

But some incidents still surprise me, make me smile in amusement, or even laugh out loud. These “extraordinary” incidents include being given an origami rose while eating alone in a restaurant, having an older gentleman in his 80s discuss business with me in a bookstore for almost an hour, and having someone stop in the middle of bicycling down the street to tell me I have nice shoes.

Lately, these random encounters and unexpected conversations have bordered on the hilarious. At the salon earlier this week, my new hairstylist Hannah came up to introduce herself to me and ask what I wanted done with my hair. She told me she was Vietnamese, and she asked me if I was Filipino, to which I said yes. When I fluffed my hair out to show her what it looked like, she stepped back and said, “Wow, you have black hair!”.

Before I could blurt out a response (which was going to be: “Well, yeah, I’m Asian”), Hannah hurriedly said that most Filipinas she had met in the U.S. either had reddish or copper-colored hair. Aha! We both had a hearty chuckle at that.

Just this afternoon, I stopped by a Chinese restaurant to order some food for dinner. The only thing I ordered was Schezuan bean curd with ground meat, because I wanted something very hot and spicy. No noodles, no rice. When the food came, the kitchen staff who brought it to me looked surprised, stopped in her tracks, looked at the brown bag she held containing the super-hot and spicy Schezuan bean curd, looked back at me as if she wasn’t sure she could trust me to eat the dish without crying, smiled, and asked, “You have rice at home?”. I smiled back and nodded, yes, thank you, I have some rice at home.

And lastly, when I was in the middle of writing this post, there was a knock on the door. Standing outside was our next-door neighbor whom we’ve met in the hallway a few times but whom we’ve never exchanged more than greeting-nods. He was in his night-out-in-town clothes. He couldn’t locate his cellphone in their apartment, he said, and asked me nicely if I could dial his number on our phone so that his cellphone would ring and he can find it. I did as he asked, and a minute later he passed by again, thanking me for helping him find his phone. I went back to the computer and started writing where I had left off. After a few minutes, our phone rang. The number looked familiar, so I answered it.

“Hello?”

Silence.

“Hello?”

“Um, I just got a missed call from this number?” said the voice at the other end.

“Are you my neighbor?”, I asked, trying not to laugh.

“Oh. Oh yeah. Sorry.”

Aha.


Posted under Navel-Gazing