A short lighthearted story of how daily life can bring a surprise. A few months ago went to Carrefour (Mall) for late night shopping via the bus after a bit of drinking and not wanting to drive. So on the way back home at I guess 10-11 pm was a young lady (20’s but at the time I did not see so well as it was dark so I thought she was older) waiting for the bus with me. She had lots of boxes of scones that looked good so I asked if she got it at Carrefour but it turned out she bakes scones at home and sold it there on the weekend at the pop up market as a hobby. The bus came, got on the bus with her. My stop is about five minutes away, in that time she gave me quite a few and I tried to pay (She rejected my money). She put it in nice bag in a hurry and into a fat shopping bag. Last second on old ATM receipt I got her contact info and since a nice new friend haha that speaks English and decent Japanese. I normally travel outside of Taiwan for work a lot (50%+) but with COVID spent most the time in Southern Taiwan and had some pleasant surprises like this from my expectation being here so long. (I have less of desire to do business travel now, and do more work via Zoom/Google)
Not sure to what extent is this story interesting or fun but here you go:
I met my girlfriend when I was an exchange student at NTU. We were both volunteering in the ICL program, where local and international students would be paired and have cultural lessons over Skype with kids from schools in remote areas. We could then signup for free trips to these schools. You could only go on one island trip, it was randomly assigned (unless it was your kids’ school) and you’d have to put up a deposit of 1000$. I was drawn to go to Xiaoliuqiu, coincidentally the school that my future girlfriend was “teaching”.
The bus was leaving at 5 AM and I slept all the way through the ride to Donggang. Later I would find that my girlfriend overslept and missed the bus (quite typical of her). When she woke up and found out, she thought of going back to sleep but then she realized she would lose her deposit. Smartly, she checked the HSR, figured the last-minute tickets were cheaper, and just about managed to catch up and join us in Taichung. I noticed her early on but the breaking point was when another guy fell in the water with his phone in his pocket during a kayaking activity that the school prepared for us. While others were caring and pitying the poor fella, we both burst out laughing. That’s when I knew there was something special about her 
It took me a couple of weeks to persuade her (and myself) to have a date together. Our first date lasted 9 hours. We had a few drinks and ended up on a 3 AM hunt for some special Family Mart soft serve. Like a good gentleman, I then escorted her all the way to the depths of Yonghe and then cycled back to Gongguan. Fast forward 3 years later, I finished all my studies, moved to Taiwan, and now we live in the depths of Yonghe together. If it wasn’t for the magic of Xiaoliuqiu we wouldn’t have met and I would probably be locked down somewhere in Europe right now.
Made friends with the old mate in the priso- hospital ward with me. He even gave me 2k and some dried fish when he left (felt really weird about taking the money but I didn’t know how to say no)
I was just thinking; is this just my experience, or is the difference in uh, outgoing-ness I guess you’d say, between the older and younger generations really stark.
Every other guy I dated in Taiwan, I’d found online, except for this one:
I had just moved to Hualien from Taoyuan to study Chinese at Tzu Chi University. I had one week before my classes began, and my grown son was visiting me from the US at the time. I searched the internet for something fun that the both of us could do in my new home area. White water rafting caught my eye.
We headed to Ruisui on the bus, watched the safety film (all in Chinese so neither of us understood it) and went to the river bank to choose our boat. There were at least a dozen rafts that each held ten people. As we pondered which boat to get into, I heard some English being spoken in the distance. We headed to that familiar sound, and in one boat was a Taiwanese guy and two Czech guys that were his couchsurfing guests, all of them speaking English. So we joined their raft group.
We had an exciting time rafting, but the five of us were getting frustrated by the other five guys in the boat: All college age guys who were lazy and useless. The five of us were doing all of the work and under our breaths complaining about the other five guys, which kind of bonded us.
After the rafting we were standing in line waiting to catch the bus back to the parking area, and I realized the English speaking Taiwanese guy was funny, helpful, adventurous, independent, and not shy in the least–all qualities that attracted me. We got to talking, figured out that both of us were playing for the same team, and started dating.
We’re still together eight years later, although I moved back to Taoyuan so it’s been long distance.
I love scones.
I have always found hiking to be a great way to meet the kind of people i like. They tend to be active (not lazy), knowledgable about the environment, enjoy a clean environment, very social, not normally ultra competitive/egotistical, know how to plan ahead (pack bags, food etc) and know how to clean up after themselves (the exception being too many taiwanese hikers have zero clue how to shit in the woods, its GROSS!).
When i am in the mood to meet people, i head to trails. If you bushwhack you meet the exact opposite and might get shot in the process haha.
Go visit your local pop up market this weekend to buy scones (or anything else you may like) and you may never know who you will meet and I hope you can have a story to post here, ha!
Cool thread, I like the not arranged through dating websites, kind of old school feel of it all. Heart-warming.
Thanks ! Did you have any stories?
Correct.
Can you tell us how you made friends with the guard ?
I met a girlfriend at McDonalds when I had to share a table with a stranger. 
I had gone in just after football practice, I think I had my gear on still. She asked me 'are all foreign guys something something ’ and we got talking about her foreign ex. Later I found out she had a thing for sweaty sports guys.
Well I liked her and she liked me and we swapped numbers and there’s more to it but we became an item.
Similar story in my early days in Taiwan. Went into a fast food joint with some golf clubs. A very sexy girl in her early 20s wanted to look at my woods. I mentioned they get the balls rolling into the holes with maximum finesse. She then asked me if I ever ventured into the bushes in the rough? I told her that’s half the fun. Such talk made me hungry, so I ordered a sundae, an espresso and a hot burrito.
Please tell us some more stories
I once met a woman in a gay bar, and took her home. She gave me chlamydia.
Lucky that was Taiwan. In Thailand, you’re much more likely to find balls when sniffing around in the bush.
I worked at a boarding school for high flying kids for two years way back when. I lived on campus. I would see those kids around 16 hours a day, five days a week. Eventually I left Taiwan. Through Facebook one of them tracked me down. Then a flood of friend requests came from them. These kids are now in their mid twenties. They are now doctors, environmentalists, high flying international business people etc. When they come to the UK they arrange to catch up. We talk about our lives etc and go our separate ways again. Three of them have made friends with my parents and have been and stayed at my parents house while I was working in a different city!!! It’s quite odd for me that they continue to reach out, but it’s also very endearing. It’s funny watching them grow up, move overseas, have kids etc, but it’s also heart warming to see them all doing so well. I guess it makes me feel like I did something worthwhile all those years ago.
The most wholesome story in Forumosa award goes to you my friend.
Not terribly surprising, as I understand elite schools are all about the networking. Of course the rich would save money and make connections by staying in someone’s house; Sam Vimes’ theory of boots.
Cool that you have tapped into that. Also, didn’t realize you were in the UK now.
I have so far met 0 people except for 1 girl online, colleagues, and a sketchy ‘magician’ at the train station. But I can tell the magician story.
I rolled up at the station to wait for a ride, and sat to count out a fare in coins. Some dude immediately sits down very close (red flag 1), and asks if he hasn’t met me there before (red flag two). After a bit of small talk (where you from, what you do), he asks if I want to go see a magic show (3), so I respond that I have a rule about train stations: I never trust anyone I meet at a train station. He says OK, slides even closer (4) and pulls out his phone, asks if I’ll look at the tricks on his phone. He’s disappointed when I quickly see the first trick uses static electricity and asks for some money anyways (5), so I remind him of my rule about train stations. He starts to pull up another video when I remember that sleight-of-hand-thieves often work in pairs, so while I’m dividing my attention between his hands and his phone, a friend could be sneaking up. So I quickly stand up, move a step away, and look around. At this point he shrugs and wanders off. I stepped behind a pole and kept looking around but didn’t see another person that looked like they were looking at me; peering around the pole I see he hasn’t gone far and is still looking at me, so I don’t sit and get the change purse out again, I just waited for my ride. That’s it, the one person I’ve met so far that wasn’t working with me, selling me food, or the girl I met online.
That said, my living situation has me temporarily somewhat isolated but I’m hoping to move to a more interesting part of the city in a few weeks.
They aren’t rich kids from rich families. They are super bright people from ordinary families. No networking going on, as I have nothing of material value to offer them. The three who stayed with my parents sent them a photo album of their stay. They send Christmas cards to my folks, one of their parents even wrote to my mum to thank her for looking after her son. Just plain old fashioned people being nice to each other.
They went to boarding school, it forges strong bonds, for those who aren’t sociopathic.
social networks are also good for developing social capital, not just material wealth. also, it must have been a pleasure to work with these students!