When wandering the streets of Shanghai — a fantastic way to spend an afternoon I might add — you may meet the old man in the market. I’m not talking about an actual, specific, old man in any specific market, but his general type. They’re in every market, really, and they’re as interesting and insightful as they are, well, old.

Many moons (suns, and turns around the sun) ago I went to Shanghai and walked Nan Jing road. What I found was lights, sights, sounds, smells, merchandise… and the old man in the market.

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In my case it was a retired engineer, arthritic and hunched, who bragged about his age. He was maybe 65, which didn’t particularly interest me on account of how healthy and active westernized celebrities are at that age. Connery and Shatner are in their 70s and Jackie Chan is still kicking butt and doing his own stunts in his 50s, but this guy had a hard life and I couldn’t bring myself to turn him away.

He’d seen things I couldn’t imagine and didn’t understand. He remembered the time of the last dynasty, clearly remembered the rise and fall of the leaders from the cultural revolution, and watched all the important changes from the fall of USSR and since. He wanted to practice his English and learn things from me, and our conversation was interesting.

Truth be told, my own grandma is still alive and I don’t listen to any of her stories, but that’s because I’ve already heard most of them and the balance are just shadows of echoes of divisive propaganda designed to make highest light of times best forgotten or make me distrust my mother. This strange stranger had stories much more interesting, and I learned as much from him in our half hour together as I did from anyone else I’ve met in China.

I could go on for days about what I learned from him, but third hand stories don’t make for good news, especially when the news in question is decades old and colored by a single, unverifiable perspective. What I’ll do instead is extend to you the advice that you should talk to him too.

When you meet the old man in the market, listen to him and do what you’re able to truly hear him. Don’t give him any money, of course, because once you do that pushes him from “kindly old” to “strange scammer” in the classes of men you’ll meet, but do give him the time of day; do.