Moments from My Metropolis - Cosmopolitan Confucians

[11 Dec - Revised and updated since posting]

One of the stories I remember about Confucius is this one about personal virtues of honesty and integrity. It was said that in leading my his moral example when he was briefly Chief Minister of a minor state, even the common people would not help themselves to objects/money dropped by others on the street.

So my search for the spirit of Cosmopolitan Confucians led me to think of several instances of miraculous recovery when we had left things behind in the metropolis we now live in, New York. You see, contrary to common perception of New York as an rapacious, impersonal and unfeeling place, for all the time I have been here I have found it to be surprisingly decent, human and - yes, in one word - civilized - place. There was even this survey in June 2006 by Reader Digest that (surprise!!) found that its the most helpful city in the US using three simple but unscientific tests: (i) walk up to a door and see if the person ahead holds the door; (ii) Buying something small in a shop and observe if the cashier says "thank you", (iii) Randomly dropping some books and papers in a busy location to see if anyone would help to pick up. Turns out that: 90 percent held the door open, 19 out of 20 store clerks said “thank you,” and more than 55% helped with the flying papers.

My first story was when my mother was hospitalized for stroke in September 2006. After she was first admitted, she had asked us to pack up a bag of her clothes and personal items to be brought to her at the hospital. But when we visit her the next day, we left behind – and presumably lost - the bag in a taxi. Dismayed but nonetheless I tried my best to report it to the taxi commission's lost and found hotline in case some one turned it in.

Incredibly, a few days later some body brought the bag in - not only did we recover the bag, the bag somehow made its way back to our apartment! It turned out that the next passenger who took the cab saw the bag. Later as she told us, when she saw the bag she thought what a nice bag and whoever who lost it must feel quite bad. So she decided to take responsibility for returning it. She opened up the bag and fortuitously she found my magazines inside (which still had my address on it). She realised from the address that we live close to her sister's gym so she got her sister to drop it off the next time she went for gym. What a wonderful heartwarming experience that was!

Another time, this time its Christmas last year; we went to a Barnes and Nobel bookshop at Union Square but as we were in the sunway station we realised that Mew Yee had left her gloves where she was sitting down in the bookshop.

It was the height of the Xmas shopping season and there were crowds of people everywhere and the pair of gloves she had lost was brand-new and was one of those nice super-insulated ones people wear to ski. We were not too sure if we could still find it but I decided to try anyway so I made my way back to the bookshop. The gloves were nowhere to be found where she was sitting so I made my way to the cashier. Sure enough, some one found the gloves and turned it over to the cashier ! The cashier a young black man just held the gloves up, "Is this it?" I said yes grabbed the gloves and thanked him profusely.

Moments like these makes me feel really good about human nature. Because it took more than one good person to turn it in but also another who gave it up in without doubting if I was bona fide. Faith in the integrity and uprightness of fellow citizens in their dealings with other people within society I feel is pretty Confucian.

Another characteristic that I'd observed, especially in taking public transportation, is that even when people go about within their personal shell - people tend to create their own private psychological bubbles especially in a crowded environment like public transport - people tend to pop out to help others and then pop in again.

Just this morning I happen to sit behind a young lady who was reading a tabloid who was later joined by an old lady. The old lady interrupted her to ask what street the bus was on, and all of a sudden a few people within earshot quickly spang into action. I looked out of the cloudy window (it was raining) and said, "66th"; the buy behind me quickly wiped the window with his gloves to correct me, "68th" he said before going back into our bubble. The young lady offered to look out for the old lady's stop and they got chatting about how depressing tabloid news tend to be. Before getting off, the old lady wished the young lady "have a nice day and think good thoughts". And they are off into their bubbles again.

Another such impromptu community action often revolve around the "back door". New York buses has a front door (by the driver) and a back door which open when pushed only if the driver disarms the door (e.g. at a stop). Quite often the driver forgets to disarm the door so people trying to get out would find themselves unable to open the back door. They would bellow out, "Back door!" to attract the driver's attention - and almost always people sitting near the back door would all join in a chorus of "Back door!!" - especially if the "victim" were children, older people or women unable to shout too loudly. After that instance of "community action" people would dissolve back into their own little bubbles again.

Moments like these are actually quite typical. So much so that the New York Times keep a fortnighly column for readers to write-in about such human-interest encounters in the city, called "Metropolitan Diaries". Here I enclose the link http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/24/nyregion/24diary.html to a recent column. In one post, someone tried to return a Blackberry only to find that it belonged to her old highschool coach; in another, a human chain brought out a bag of steamed dumplings from a subway car during the rush hour crush. Amusing and heartwarming.

This column remain one of my favourite columns in the venerable grey lady, NYT.