Randomly stopped by two police officers today who wanted to know what I was doing in the area. I'm not confident enough with Cantonese to use it in such circumstances, so I only spoke in English; they refused to reciprocate. (English proficiency is a requirement to join the police force here.)
Yet the moment I started writing their numbers down in my little notebook (Moleskine, no less) all those hours of English class came flooding back to them — I guess we're all motivated by different things.
The entire affair was conducted calmly with indoor voices despite our being outdoors, which does reflect rather well on them.