Helping foreign friends, or minding my own business?

As I stood in a stall of Beijing's Silk Market, waiting to exchange a silk garment, I watched in amazement as the young vendor, displaying supreme confidence, pulled out silk nightgown after nightgown for the perusal of a foreigner, who sounded like an American, but frankly could have been from any English-speaking Western country.

I was right behind the man in the cramped stall that had just enough space for the three of us. There was no one else there.

"This color," said the vendor as the man hemmed and hawed. "Your beautiful wife, what color hair she got? Like mine?" she asked, holding up her ponytail, "or golden colored."