honest living

I walked home from the bus stop last night. It wasn't late, maybe 8 o' clock or so, but the sky was dark and the streets relatively empty. I was still on the main road when I felt a tug on my backpack. I spun around and suddenly stood face to face with a young man, perhaps in his 20s, his hand still on the back of my bag. He looked at me surprised. Then he smiled faintly, pulled his hand away, and turned to face the traffic. I, too, was stunned. From the corner of my eye, I saw an old woman in a red jacket, a witness to the scene, watching us from about 20 feet away.
"What were you doing?" I asked the man, incriminatingly. Keeping my eyes on him, I felt the zippers of my backpack. One was partially open, but I knew there was nothing in that pocket to be stolen.
The man did not respond; he just continued smiling and watching the cars.
I watched him for a few more seconds but then didn't know what else to do. Maybe there was nothing else to do. So I continued walking.
I took a few steps and then turned around to see if the man was still following me. Instead, he had taken off running in the other direction. The old woman in red had stopped watching and was heading in the opposite direction, too. The man slowed his pace as he neared her. Soon he matched her stride, and then, to my surprise, they walked with one another on down the street.
As I neared my apartment building, I put my hand in my pocket and felt the jingle of about four or five coins. I was suddenly flooded with anger. Why had that man singled me out? What had I done for him to want to steal from me? Then - why had I done nothing to prevent him from stealing again? Why had I just walked on as if nothing had happened? And finally - why hadn't I thought to give him the coins in my pocket? Maybe then he wouldn't think to steal from the next person. Maybe then he'd decide to seek an honest living.
Never before has anyone in Shanghai tried to swindle me. Sure, the people in the markets jack up their prices to twice or three times the true value, but you're expected to bargain the prices back down. Taxi drivers have especially impressed me with their honesty. If you get in their cab at a red light, they wait until they start moving to put the meter down rather than charging you for the wait time. If they get lost, they'll stop the meter and charge you only for what the fare should have been if they had gone the right way. Only once did a taxi driver pretend to get lost; we told him we wanted to go to the east end of the street and he intentionally went west instead, keeping the meter running the whole time. But when we complained and told him we should only have to pay half the final fare, he did not argue at all.
I've also always considered Shanghai to be a safe city. I don't see crime on the streets and have never felt uncomfortable walking outside late at night. I've heard of people getting their cell phones stolen, especially in extremely crowded places like on the subway or the bus. Generally, though, if you keep an eye on your things and use your common sense, you'll be fine. So the fact that I was pickpocketed in the early evening on a fairly empty street in my own neighborhood - that was just shocking to me.