It was then that I saw the face of the man who had been in front of me for the last few minutes. Turning around to depart, he was just 50 cm from my eyes. For a brief moment, we were face to face -- he, a gaunt old man with sunken eyes, a grey crewcut and white stubble.

He had his gnarled hand up against the corner of his eyes, smoothening out the tears. Yes, he had been crying.

Perhaps he hadn't had an easy life. Perhaps he had been a hawker or a house-painter, informal jobs with nothing by way of a pension. In his old age, he might have a mountain of financial worries. Worse yet, life and society as he knew it in his younger days were disappearing. The dialects are gone from official speak, in their place, not Mandarin, but Angmoh (English). Medical and hospital costs are stratospheric compared to what he had known 3 decades ago. Even taking a bus downtown costs more than taking the taxi in days gone by.