The kindness of strangers

I am an avid traveler. I love the idea of being in a new place. Somehow the world of what is possible becomes infinitely bigger simply because I am in an unfamiliar place. In a setting where millions of people do not know me, and I know practically no one save for my fellow travelers, the air is filled with excitement and potential.

Everything is foreign — the language, the currency, the people, the place. Except for the few familiar clothes I have with me, everything is practically a first-time encounter. My room is a hotel room. There are strange accents everywhere and the people I encounter do not share anything with me, except perhaps being human.

It is in situations like these where I get fresh insights into humanity. Here are a few discoveries I’ve made during a few travels.

Once in Tokyo, I found myself standing alone in a train station, feeling quite lost. I had fallen asleep and missed the station where I was supposed to get off. People were rushing everywhere and I was standing in the midst of this human traffic, unable to comprehend the Japanese signage that told which train went to which destination. Knowing that there are very few Japanese who can speak English, I thought that perhaps I should look for a Caucasian among the crowd to ask for directions.

After a few minutes, it was clear that I was probably not going to find an English speaker, and so I went up to a Japanese lady and tried to ask for directions in the best way I could. She smiled and bowed in usual Japanese fashion. I mentioned the station I was going to. By her reaction, it seemed that I was quite far from where I had wanted to be. She promptly took me through two escalators to a different platform and stood with me in silence as we waited for a train. When we saw the train coming, she motioned with her fingers that my stop would be three stations from where we were. I thanked her profusely. It was only after I had entered the train and the door closed that she bade me goodbye and turned around to go where she was going.

The whole episode must have delayed her for about 15 minutes. I was quite embarrassed knowing that she must be a busy person like most everyone in Tokyo and yet she took the time to be helpful and accommodating to this foreigner. Her kindness has made Tokyo quite a special city to me.

In the late ‘80s, the APO and our wives were traveling through Europe. We were in Vienna where we had just arrived from Germany a few hours earlier. After asking for directions to where we wanted to go, we hopped on a bus. It was quite an experience for the new travelers that we were to be in a bus where everyone was white and looked so different from us. I must admit, we were uneasy being “different” from everyone else on the bus. 

Matters got more complicated when a bus inspector came and started checking for tickets. We did not know that we should have gotten our tickets before riding the bus. We took out our wallets and, to our embarrassment, we realized that we had not changed currencies since we had just arrived three hours earlier. We tried to explain our situation to the inspector and offered to pay in US dollars or deutschmarks. To our pleasant surprise, people on the bus started taking out coins from their pockets and bags and paid for our tickets. All we could do was show gratitude by smiling and saying thank you.

I can never forget that moment because of the kindness people showed to the strangers that we were. It’s hard not to have faith in humanity’s goodness when something like this happens to you.

In 1997, my wife and I took an adventure trip to Nepal. We wanted to go to a totally new place where we could just go with the flow of whatever was waiting for us there. We wanted the thrill of seeing and experiencing something that was outside the usual Westernized destinations we had been to. The only assurance we gave ourselves was making sure we checked into a good hotel. If things turned out too rough for comfort, or if worse came to worst, at least we would have a refuge where we would be comfortable. We took a plane from Bangkok and landed in Kathmandu.

Kathmandu was quite pleasant actually. On the first day, we found ourselves in the shopping area, a collection of mostly makeshift stalls that sold handicrafts, antiques and curios that Lydia likes. It was quite a charming market that sold what looked like medieval stuff — brass works, old wooden antiques, prayer wheels and, curiously, horns made of human femur. It was exhilarating to be in a place that seemed to be lost in time.

Carrying bags of stuff we had bought, we waited for transport to take us back to the hotel. Then we remembered that we had inadvertently left a bag of goods in one of the stores. We turned around and in a rush, we went through the labyrinthine pathways frantically trying to remember where the store was. When we finally found it, the saleswoman was apologetic. She gave us back our bag explaining that she had been looking for us for the past hour.

Nepal is not a rich country. In fact, the value of their currency at that time was one half of the peso and the goods were so cheap, even without discounts. We would have charged it to experience if the woman had told us that the bags were not there. And so it was heartwarming to experience the honesty of this humble Nepalese store clerk who made our first visit there extra memorable.

Robert Louis Stevenson once wrote that “There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.” He is absolutely right. And it is those moments when local people in a foreign land break the barriers by showing to visitors things that are familiar and desirable to everyone everywhere — friendliness, honesty, kindness, hospitality. A warm smile can make one feel very welcome.

The writer Dagobert D. Runes said it even better: “People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home.” Humanity is the same everywhere. And the marvel of it all is, what we find commonplace at home can be a big deal when we encounter it in some unfamiliar place. Travel makes us awaken to an inner destination that lies within us. We leave home to find it everywhere.

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Here are four exciting workshops I will be conducting.

1. “Creative For Life workshop” at the Fort (six-session run). Sept. 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 27 at 7 to 9 p.m. Venue is at Meridian International College, 1030 Campus Ave., 2F CIP Bldg, McKinley Hill, Fort Bonifacio. Call 223-6468, 426-5375. Also call 0916-8554303 and ask for Ollie or write me at emailjimp@gmail.com for inquiries.

2. Glamour photography — Sept. 25 at 1 p.m., Bulb Studios, Molave Compound, 2231 Pasong Tamo ext. near Nissan and Allied Bank. Call 0917-8974865, 0918-8121967. Models Jean Harn and Che Ram.

3. Jim Paredes 2nd Songwriting Workshop on Oct. 9 and 10 from 1 to 6 p.m. Fee is P5,000. Address is 113 B. Gonzales, Loyola Heights, QC. Call 4265375 or 09168554303 and ask for Ollie. Write me at emailjimp@gmail.com for questions and reservations.

4. Basic Photography Workshop on Oct. 16, from 1 to 6:30 p.m. Address is 113 B. Gonzales, Loyola Heights, QC. Call 426-5375, 09168554303 and ask for Ollie. Write me at emailjimp@gmail.com for questions and reservations.