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Last weekend I had a lovely Saturday. It was one of those weekends where I didn’t really ‘do’ much, yet it felt like so much was accomplished! After my friend’s motorcycle broke down, we were on a mission to get it back. We met at the bus station but ended up finding a cab from Kaohsiung to Kenting – only 300NT, which is cheaper than the bus. For those of you not from Taiwan, that’s about $10 Canadian for a two hour ride! We were lucky and watched a movie on the way. I can’t say I cared much for 2012- especially since it just made me more scared of earthquakes, but it was entertainment, anyway.

We got to Kenting and had a decent meal of rice and veggies, and lucky for us there weren’t many people there in the afternoon. It was pretty empty. We just had time to mosy around and then find out where to rent a scooter to go to Jialeshui. I was really excited because I’ve been practising my ‘scooter rental’ Chinese skills. The first price I was quoted was $450NT (about $12) for a day. After explaining (IN CHINESE!!!) that I needed the bike from 2pm -9pm, I got the price down to $350. After showing them my Taiwan driver’s license and pointing out that they only had 100CC and not 125CC scooters (IN CHINESE!) I got the price down to $300. Maybe I could have gotten an even better deal, but hey, that’s $10 for a day! Why not! So we hopped on the rental and off we went to Jialeshui.

We got to Jialeshui and I was sad to see that the waves were a little too much, but I thought I’d try anyway. Wunsin’s surf shop was not open and he’d gone to Taipei, so I was sad I couldn’t say hi. Some nice people in the village offered to drive my friend to the nearby town where her motorcycle had been repaired from a breakdown the week before. In the meantime, I had to find a surfboard so I walked to the guesthouse next door. The man there was nice enough to let me into Wunsin’s surf shop to get the board I liked and said he would give the money to Wunsin when he got back. I didn’t question it because everyone in this village is pretty tight-knit. They are some of the most honest people I’ve met. I rented a board for $300 for a half day and that was a pretty good deal for me, since I knew I probably wouldn’t even make it past the break!

While my friend went to get her bike, I made my way to the beach. Of course as I thought, I didn’t make it past the break. Even though I love surfing, I really suck at it. But if you are a surfer and you are reading this – Jialeshui is the place to go in Taiwan! The people in that village are so wonderful and connected. There’s a sort of energy that surrounds them and nobody is a stranger. It’s just a beautiful place – like paradise to me.

The best meal I ever had home-cooked in Taiwan was in this village. It was one year ago and a holiday in Taiwan. The villagers were having a massive BBQ of freshly caught tuna. They told us it had been speared that day. And they marinated it in some sort of deliciousness including pepper, lemon, all sort of herbs and..oh I’m drooling and way off the point. But the point really is, go there! It’s great and even if you can’t surf it’s nice to sit on the beach just like I did that day.

After my friend came and left to drive her motorcycle back to Kaohsiung, I made my way back to Kenting on the rental to another of my favorite beaches. Now I was by myself so I decided to just buy a beer and sit on the other beach with my book. I like the Ceasar Beach because they always play nice music and they have bathrooms and lockers so if you’re by yourself you can go swimming. It’s also a nice little cove to go for a sunset swim. Pure relaxation! While I was sitting there, something amazing happened.

A Taiwanese girl and her friend came up to me and said hi! Why was it amazing? First of all because I was a little lonely at the time. I’m not generally lonely in Taiwan because usually it’s ‘weird’ to do things by yourself and everything is done in ‘groups’ or ‘couples.’ The second reason it was amazing was because they made the first move to talk to me! In Taiwan, I find that if I’m on a beach by myself, no one ever says hi to me. They might look or be curious but not actually talk unless I talk to them. And here all of a sudden were these two really interesting people! The guy had studied in England for five months, and his name was Alfonso. His English was wonderful! He was on holiday back home in Taiwan and going back to England for another few months. The girl, Lana, also had wonderful English. They were both young and full of energy. We talked for about 30 minutes. This almost never happens to me here in Taiwan, and when it does I find I meet the most interesting people.

At the end of the conversation, Lana said, “Can I ask you a personal question? When we’re talking and first meet, should I look into your eyes?” At first, this was a strange question to me, but then I thought about it and realized that rarely do people look right into my eyes upon first meeting. She gave me the example of first meeting and speaking for one minute. How much of that one minute would you make eye contact? My answer was at least 45 seconds, if not the whole minute. Otherwise, it appears as though the other person is distracted from the conversation. She told me, this is really difficult in Taiwanese culture because they don’t make eye contact at first meeting for that long. It would be considered rude.

Well this explains a lot. So many times I would get frustrated or think someone else was looking elsewhere, not paying attention when really it’s just considered rude for them to seek your eyes directly? Very strange to grasp but very enlightening. On the way home I took another cab – a beetle nut chewing man who kept speaking to me in Chinese with a thick accent even though I had no idea what he was saying 75% of the time. But then… there was the 25% that I did understand and that’s 25% more than I understood two years ago. All the while I was thinking about all the interesting people I’d met in only 12 hours. It was a very wonderful Saturday.

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