Asking for directions is a route to the capital city's politeness

In the iconic Hollywood flick Crocodile Dundee, the protagonist, a crocodile poacher from the Australian Outback, is invited by a reporter to New York.

He has never been to a big city before. Having been used to doffing his hat to greet friends back home, Michael J. "Crocodile" Dundee does that in the Big Apple too, but hardly anyone reciprocates, a behavior he finds rather odd.

That has been the experience of many - of people being cold - in big cities, including my own.