An Offering of Chili Mango

Back in 2019, the December sun shone weakly through post-rainstorm clouds on the Embarcadero boardwalk of San Francisco. Me and two of my college friends were visiting our mutual high school friend Phil* in the Bay Area, who had graciously offered to host us at his studio complex in the City for the weekend. After Ubering around to Chinatown for dim sum and Twin Peaks in the early afternoon, the four of us moseyed on over to the Embarcadero to walk around amidst the tourist crowds before taking our bus back to Davis.

As we made our way around the corner, I spotted a store that selled fresh fruit bowls with chamoy (Mexican spicy seasoning). I hadn't had very much fruit in the past few days, and was craving some fibrous, juicy fruity goodness. For some reason, I didn't feel like telling my friends about this place at first. I wasn't sure if it was how fast we were walking, or because no one else seemed to share my interest in sliced mango with chamoy.

But then, after a few more minutes of walking, I saw an older-looking lady lying down on a bench, covered in a shawl. Who knew how long it had been since she last had something to eat or drink? A wave of compassion swept over me, and I thought back to the fruit bowls with chamoy store we passed by a few blocks ago. I suddenly thought of buying a fruit bowl for myself and sharing it with the ostensibly houseless lady on the bench. In a split second, I told my friends that I would be going to the bathroom nearby as an excuse to take a detour to the fruit bowl store instead. I hastily bought a fruit cup for $9, then gobbled a few chamoy-covered fruit pieces on my way back to my friends.

Once I got back to the bench, within eyesight of my other 3 friends, I placed the rest of the bowl at the bottom of the bench, within reach of the lady reclining on top. "Here", I gently tapped on her shoulder, gesturing towards the fruit-filled cup. She then reached over and grabbed the cup, while mumbling a word of thanks.

As we walked away, my friend Milhouse* turned towards me, and exclaimed, "Wow James! That was a very nice thing you did for that person back there!" He patted me on the back, as if I was a golden retriever who had fetched his sweater + wallet out of a pond. Slightly taken aback, I shyly shushed him, saying "Bro, don't make such a commotion. I lowkey don't want people to know about this". Milhouse simply shrugged, and we continued walking along the Embarcadero, basking in the weak sunshine.

Among my real-life friends and family, I have a reputation for being something of a bleeding heart do-gooder. In college, I made a conscious effort to talk to the houseless folks camping out on the sidewalks near campus when I passed them by. Sometimes if I passed them by while walking back from the local Trade Joe's or Safeway on my weekly grocery run, I'd give one of them an apple or an orange- since I figured fresh produce was harder to come by than most foods for people on the streets, and everyone needs fiber in their diet, even if they don't share my taste for regular helpings of fruit. And I never stopped feeling like I could or should go out and volunteer at park restoration or cleanup events every once in a while, even after I graduated from high school and no longer needed to do Key Club or National Honor Society to pad my college application resume.

But for someone who seemed so self-righteous about civic engagement and being a do-gooder, I was also very shy about it. Like I never wanted to post on social media about the random altruistic things I did, in part becuse I was raised in a culturally conservative immigrant household where "rocking the boat" and "making waves" was frowned upon. But it was also because posting about the altruistic stuff you do has connotations of virtue signaling that I implicitly associate with narcissistic, self-absorbed socialites. And as much as I gravitated to social media as a source of validation during my teenage and college years, I never wanted to go down that route.

So when the COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns started, I quietly donated the extra money I was awarded for answering weekly safety quiz questions at work to charitable causes and fundraisers- whether related to small businesses shutting down durng lockdowns, or racial justice protests during the long hot summer of 2020. I never told anyone about this, and was perfectly fine with that (although it was very gratifying to have my "quietly donating behind the scenes" acknowledged by a woman in a thank-you video recording for AAPI political engagement). Whether through helping out a houseless lady on a December afternoon, or supporting a coworker's small business by ordering some of their merch for the holiday season, these spontaneous acts of kindness are my secret guilty pleasure.

*not their real name