The beauty of Taiwanese people

by Adriana Correia (Portugal)

Making a local connection Taiwan

After having fallen asleep at the airport waiting for the opening of the gate for my flight that would take me to Taichung and being awakened by a charitable soul in a last call, here I go to a new destination. I get to know the city as much as possible with my backpack, while I wait for my host who worked late that day and who, on top of that, had a company dinner, which made me after having walked a few kilometers with a nice weight on top and without sleeping at all, stop for dinner at a convenience store for a long time. Basically I decided to leave Koh Tao and go to Bangkok on a trip of more than ten hours and sleep at the airport so I wouldn't pay another night at any hostel in the capital. Of course, I couldn't get too much sleep and I was tired at dawn. Ellis wrote me my destiny on a piece of cardboard in his characters and there I went with my smallest backpack with food and water. It was super easy to get a ride! The first one took me to a village that was in celebrations and, despite being a few kilometers from the lake, I decided to go with three young people and enjoy a bit of that local Taiwanese festival. After that, I stopped at an intersection that seemed perfect for the purpose and, in less than five minutes, five cars stopped in a row. I got scared and thought to myself: - What the hell? Am I in trouble? But not. It was just a family divided into five cars wanting to give me a ride. They were super curious about me that they started a video call conversation with me in the back seat of one of the cars and the other four appearing in multiple windows. I couldn't stop laughing. I ended up not only having lunch and walking around the village with them but also going to temples and taking a boat trip. They also welcomed me as a member of the family without even asking, taking me to the best buffet in town with lots of food and it was with them I tried the special eggs cooked in tea, ice cream of this, juice of that, and a thousand other things. On my way back I would write that "traveling is about giving". I started to hitchhike in Georgia but it was in France where I tried the most. I had all those thoughts that a girl alone doing that can be dangerous. I woke up today feeling that maybe I would go to the place I wanted too late but it revealed to be just the perfect timing. This reminded me to enjoy and be present rather than capturing them through my phone’s screen. Life isn’t about that. Enjoy the moment first without trying so hard to capture the best for everyone else. And this photo with all of those smiles is one of the best of my today’s album”. After this day when I remained completely grateful for everything I was receiving without expectations, here's something even more unexpectedly fantastic. They ask me if I want to continue to be part of their family trip and travel to another village almost two hundred kilometers away, since they had a room available where I could perfectly stay. I am known to be an ice cube but I started to feel my eyes turning slightly red with real tears! I had the goal to comeback by hitchhiking but the family thought it was too late to get a ride to still be able to go to the night market with my host, they took me directly to the bus station and they paid me for the bus ticket and offered me snacks for the way! I just thanked each one of them with a big hug. I didn't expect to find but I won a family in Taiwan, isn't it amazing?