Taroko Gorge

Taiwan is a special place to me. It’s the first place where I learned to entrust complete strangers in a foreign land.

During our stay, we’d gone to Taroko Gorge. It sits quite a ways from Taipei, and we’d taken a train to get there. I’d gotten separated from my group of friends but recognized the face of someone in our tour group. She spoke in broken English.

“Don’t worry. I get you home,” she said with a smile. “I speak Mandarin!”

This was good. I didn’t. And the train’s conductor only spoke in this strange gibberish I understood was a foreign language.

But wait, who is this woman and why is she being so kind to me? Is she really going to get me home or take me for a ride and leave me robbed and beaten? Who’s to tell when you’re a young American in a completely foreign land.

As we got to talking, she told me she was visiting Taiwan on business from Singapore. She showed me pictures of her family: an adorable little 1-year-old baby, and her husband.

“I want to see the world,” she told me. “That gorge was really something, wasn’t it!?”

I could see the humanity in her. The kindness. The compassion. Maybe foreign people aren’t so bad after all.

“I’m from a small town in Indiana,” I explained, beginning to open up. “But I live in the Philippines now. My friends and I came up here to see the sights.”

“That’s so cool! Have you been to Taipei 101?”

“Yeah! We went the day we arrived. This is our second day, na.”

The train eventually got to the outskirts of Taipei.

“What hotel you stay?”

I told her, and she said mine was the next stop for me to get off. She was staying deeper in the city center, but would let me know when I needed to exit. We continued talking, sharing our lives, our hopes for the future. Eventually my stop came. As I got up to leave, she handed me her business card.

“If you need, just call!” She smiled ear to ear.

I thanked her and as I exited the train I found my friends again. Kindness has a way of changing a person, especially in times of uncertainty. And for this young traveler, it’s a change I’ll hold dear for a lifetime.