The Smiles of Strangers

by Emily Deal (New Zealand)

Making a local connection Taiwan

Yangmingshan National Park is the place I headed to that morning. Leaving behind the bustling centre of Taipei’s Xinyi district and its cacophony of scooters, buses and MRT announcements, I found myself in a long line of people. Where am I? Is this the place the park vans leave from? Should I have bought a ticket? Nobody here sounds like they speak English; would they understand my Chinese if I asked for help? Suddenly, I felt a sharp tug on my shoulder. “Aya!” My eyes met the calming tanned face of an elderly woman, her cheeks sun-marked and lined with wrinkles. She pointed intently at my face. "You, by yourself travel?” Despite her broken English, her voice set me at ease. "Dui.” Yes. Another tug at my shoulder, this time from my left. “Hao le. Great. She’s coming with us then.” Bundled into a small minivan full of sweaty travellers, in the gloom, I briefly lost sight of my new-found companions. As the bus display lit up, one of them grunted and gestured that it was our stop. I was the first one to get off. Four figures followed behind, gingerly stepping onto the pavement. The silence was awkward. We exchanged looks and examined one another, trying to work out what to do next. The four women, all at least in their 70s, just grinned. “You come on our walk,” the middle woman started and turned to her friends. “We do maybe, every second week.” They all nodded. “It’s called Er - zi - Ping, you know?” My thoughts were scattered. I vaguely remembered something from my tattered guidebook, which I’d fallen asleep reading the night before. “Come on!” I was yanked forward, beckoned along a dirt pathway winding through the shadows of mountain beech. “You like walking?” It was the younger woman with the wire-rimmed glasses. “Yes, very much, I’ve done a few walks back home in New Zealand’. “Waa!” The oldest in the group was smiling, readjusting the grip on her cane. “Very good, very beautiful there.” The four, I learned, had been doing walking trails together within Yangmingshan for the past 20 years. “There’s always something different to see, even if the legs are slow,” they explained. “Sometimes in winter there’s snow, and monkeys, and birds with beaks like…”. One woman gestured at a black shape above, twisting her fingers into a hook. As we walked, I marvelled at a spotted gecko on the path, two red-bellied squirrels fighting over food crumbs. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed smirks being shared among my new companions. “She like animal, eh?” The clearing of Erziping was bathed in an inviting haze. The sun had spread along the mountaintops. A pebbled path coiled around a wetland humming with the sounds of frogs. In the distance was Datun Peak. Its 1092m grassy summit called out to me from the reflection across the water. I was suddenly aware of my disjointed footsteps. I stopped and looked back to see that the four had stopped to rest on a stained bamboo bench. Lunch was taken in the typical Taiwanese way - sharing food with each other. Bag after bag of dried or preserved night market treats were offered to me, along with steamer after steamer of dumplings. I began to wonder how they’d managed to carry all that food in their tiny rucksacks. Feeling a bit embarrassed, the best I could do was offer my Western snack food which consisted of Oreos, crisps and crackers. All of which they politely declined. We parted company back at the bus stop. I felt oddly hollow as the woman with the wrinkled cheeks waved back. As the light became dimmer, my eyes wandered to another mountain peak. What was over the other side? Where was north? There was no guidebook or map to reach for. But that was okay. The wind suddenly felt icy. It seemed that the landscape had echoed my thoughts. My mind wandered to a Chinese proverb I’d read. “An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to one day meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but it will never break.”