I had a very bizarre experience today on my commute home. It was a typical after-hour’s day and I was riding the public transit: I found a seat and sat there minding my own business. A few stops later, an elderly woman entered the train and awkwardly grabbed the handrail. Instinctively, like all good Samaritans, I offered my seat.

“Would you like to sit down?” I asked, while simultaneously making the gesture of standing up.

She looked at me with a look of astonishment: almost as if I was the last person she expected to offer up a seat. I looked back and forced a smile.

“That was a very kind gesture, thank you!”

I replied: “No problem, you’re very welcome.”

As I was standing there, (struggling to keep my balance) I overheard the woman repeatedly telling her husband + grandson (assumed anyways) that that was a kind gesture. They all looked at me as if I had broken some sort of ’stereotypical Asian persona’. From my observations, Asians typically try to keep a low profile and mind their own business. We avoid confrontation, do our work, and hope that’s all there is to it and I appeared to have made a taboo by breaking this expectation.

My first impression was this woman assumed that I was not fluent in English and like the majority of people, would ‘fake sleep’ to avoid any confrontation. However, this was not the case, and she seemed flabbergasted by the act.

In my opinion, this should be the ‘norm’. That is, offering a seat to the elderly. Unfortunately, after observing my surroundings, I noticed everyone around me seemed to ignore the fact that this person was a senior and pretended to not see her. It was quite embarrassing/depressing to witness.

Anyways, what I came to realize today was that it’s strange how visible minorities are misunderstood, whether it be intentional or not. We’ve heard it before: “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

Today, I felt good about myself after seeing how the woman’s face had lit up. It gave me a sense of satisfaction; knowing that I exceeded one’s expectation and did not expect, nor required gratification in return.

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