借问 jio men

At GM Tower, an old man walked towards our table. Spoke in Hokkien say 'jio men zi le', he was asking for direction, it is not the first time I heard this phrase, but after some years, my sensitivity towards language, especially my real mother tongue, has changed. The first word of the sentence 借 (borrow) has a different ring. He had to 'borrow' me to ask me a question 借问. He had to loan my time or use me, perhaps. The usuage when I was a teenager has already degenerated into ruffians challenging ruffians from another area. When a friend called to say he was 借问 (jio men) somewhere, it implies he ran into trouble, asking which 'number' he is from. The questions that follow would be if he was outnumbered, was he beaten up, or he was so courageous and heroic and escaped unscathed. So literally, I was jio men at Golden Mile not by some street hooligans but an Ah Pek who walked slow and unsteadily. He could have used 请问 qi' ah men (invitation/to ask). I told him I do not belong here,  I am just as unfamiliar. In a larger sense, more than just the building,  this could also mean my sense of estrangement with the island, its inhabitants, and their ideologies, I have developed unwittingly over the years. I am not sure if jio men is originally considered a formal or an informal term, but I am sure people who used in the non-Ah Beng sense are dying out.