Suddenly, Cantonese

On my train ride back to work, this guy took me by surprise. At a stop, the doors opened, he walked in and walked right up to me. Without missing a beat, he started speaking Chinese to me and was asking directions.

I ended up having to stand up, say "Uhm…" and proceeded to fumble my way around two languages. I couldn’t get a sense of where he wanted to go and, unfortunately, was unable to help him out. I tried saying that he could come with me to the Merchandise Mart stop, and ask directions from the CTA guy there… but he shook his head and said he was just going to stay on the train.

Stubborn men and directions. Language barriers be damned!