Kindness of Strangers

“I always depend on the kindness of strangers.”

I don’t but...oh how I benefit. I’d never thought before how the word is kindness, not niceness. Lots of people are nice. And I don’t mean to disparage nice. I am nice. But kindness...kindness is another thing altogether. Kindness is not an affectation for the comfort of self or others. Kindness offers something up of the person offering it. Niceness is smile, a head nod, a greeting, a "have a nice day".

The folks at my Taroko hotel hotel didn’t speak English. So when I clomped down the stairs, both my packs slung across my body, she smiled in the vague way I smile when I don’t understand what people are saying. A smile that says I am friendly and mean no harm but also I cannot participate in this conversation.

I typed out “how can I get to the train station" on Google Translate, and she graciously walked me out of the front door, onto the porch, and pointed across the street to the bus stop.

Google hadn’t mentioned a bus to me earlier when I tried to figure out directions on my own, and since it is Sunday I hadn’t questioned the omission, but now I wondered if this would be Google’s second failure on my trip.

I crossed the street near the crosswalk, early in the day and little traffic allowed me to stroll. I passed what appeared to be a storefront church before arriving at the covered bus stop. My eyes glossed over the signage mostly written in Chinese, the few English words not helpful in deciphering my transportation fate.

And then a minivan pulled up, a child of indecipherable age leaning out of the front window. He looked at me and away, a smile sneaking across his lips, a glance as familiar to me in my travels as tourist menus (although I try to avoid these). For a second I forgot I was in Taiwan and flashed back to South Africa and wondered if the Sunday transport was a khumbi (minivan taxi).

But no, the van was parking and an entire family disembarked: the father, driving; the mother, holding a two-month-old girl; the sheepishly smiling 13-years-old, holding his 7-years-old brother.

I smiled, my eyes trailing to the baby because- I do love a baby. And the mom smiled and headed toward me. “Hello,” she offered. I returned her greeting. And then the most universal of travel conversations unfolded. “Where are you from?” “Where are you going?” on their part, “How old are the kids?” on mine.

The Xicheng Taroko train station, she assured me, was a little too far to walk, but off to the side her husband busily looked up the bus schedule and assured me one was four minutes out. We posed, me mom and children, for the picture that is often requested (less often in Taiwan than in China but still more than other places) and they continued on their way...I suspect to the church I'd passed.

I looked curiously up the road, in the direction my bus should arrive and sure enough a bus ambled down the street. The 13-year-old motioned to his dad and his dad walked smiling toward the street, urging me out too. He waved the bus in, had a short conversation with the driver, and then assured me this was the right one.

The doors shut, and I was gone.

I don’t always depend on the kindness of strangers. I depend on technology, and research, my own wits, and blind luck...I don’t always depend on the kindness of strangers, but oh how I benefit just the same.