Practically Native

From Cara's keyboard:

While waiting for a light to change, on the way home from work, I overheard some poor foreigner asking one of the crossing guards how to get somewhere in Beijing. The reason it caught my attention was that he asked in English - and he was holding out a big ol' colorful map of course.
The crossing guard had better things to do and didn't understand English anyway, so he waved the confused fellow off. Since I was already stopped, I moved myself and my bike over to where the tourist was standing and asked if I could be of assistance.
Surprisingly enough, I could be.
I recognized the name of his destination and I was able to point out his current location and his goal on the map. I was also able to help him orient himself with respect to North and give him a little information about the streets he needed to walk down.

In total, I was able to tell him enough about the city that, as far as this guy knew, I'd lived in Beijing my whole life....although my lack of Chinese accent may have given me away.