新天地 Xin Tian Di — a glitzy, high end shopping district of Shanghai home to luxury retail brands, superb restaurants and cafes, and a topnotch cityscape. During the 15 minute walk from the line 10 subway stop to Hong Kong Plaza, I saw too many Porsches to count on my fingers (…and a Tesla… I like Teslas). As Kanye West said, “I shop so much I can speak Italian”, and likewise I think I might have picked some up too from all the designer brands I saw in my peripheral vision. Anyway, it was an unlikely place to come across a genuine giver whose livelihood depends on making sales. But I did.

It was my good friend Lucia’s birthday and we had just finished a delicious and entertaining birthday dinner with her friends at a Thai-fusion (her description, not mine) restaurant. Then we went to this cool bar street for beers. Between the endless signs displaying imported beer brands and foreign faces crowded around high tables on the sidewalk outside of the small bars, I could have sworn I was somewhere in Europe. After a Brooklyn IPA and a bottle of Hoegaarden, Lucia and I decided to meet up with some of the kids in my program who were going club hopping. But first, we had a couple hours to kill.

Wandering into random shops is one of my favorite things to do in China. No agenda; just chatting with the owner, checking out the foreign trinkets, and getting a little onsite culture experience and language practice. Chinese tea shops are my favorite. There’s something very peaceful and feng shui about them. Delicate tea pots and tea cups lined along the wooden shelves, plants that add an always much needed bit of naturalness, a faint smell of incense, and, of course, vast arrays of teas — I always ask for a whiff of their jasmine tea.

The shop Lucia and I wandered into that night had a similar vibe about it. It was a small jewelry shop that sold jade Buddha necklaces and bracelets made of wooden beads. For weeks I had a particular bracelet in mind that I really wanted to buy; I figured this might be just the place.

I struck up a conversation with the owner, and in classic fashion I spoke in Chinese while she responded in English. Lucia — born and raised in Shanghai and able to speak English perfectly — filled in the missing pieces of the puzzle when our vocabulary’s did not overlap. The woman proudly told us about her bracelets, the different techniques by which they were made, and what made them special. I asked her if she had a bracelet where each bead was a different seed, the one that I had been wanting to find. The way I translated it when I asked her was a little ridiculous, but apparently I got the message across. She reached down for bag behind the counter. Although I did not doubt for a second she was a genuinely goodhearted person, what she did next completely took me by surprise. She pulled out two of the exact bracelets I had been searching for and handed one to me and one to Lucia.

She gave them to us as gifts and welcomed me to her country. I will be reminded of her kindness whenever I wear that bracelet. I got exactly what I wanted and more, and she in return smiled wide knowing she had made my night. Witnessing altruism is so damn refreshing.

Spread the love: