Granny Chen pulled up beside me on her old bicycle, and rode alongside me as I walked home from the market. ‘Where are you from?’ she asked in Mandarin, her bicycle wobbling alarmingly towards the centre of the road. I told her I was from the UK. We chatted a bit about her son, who was a doctor in Kent, and she told me about her visits to see him. Then she asked: ‘Are you a Christian? Would you like to come to my church?’
My usual response in these situations is to politely decline the invitation, and to derail any further questions with a long excursion into my own family history. Yes, I say, I come from a long line of priests. My father was a priest. And his father. And his father too, all the way back through five generations. And all this is true, which is why I look—in some obscure way that is difficult to fully put your finger on—like a priest. This bit of family history is usually sufficient to elegantly sidestep the invitation, to show that, if nothing else, my decision not to attend church is not an ill-informed one.
But Granny Chen was not so easily put off. ‘Stop!’ she said. ‘I will phone my Church Sister! She can talk to you in English!’ She stopped her bike, and we stood in the road while Granny Chen dialled a number and handed me her mobile phone. The woman on the other end stammered a couple of sentences in English, and then seemed relieved to lapse back into Mandarin. We said hello, and I told her that Granny Chen had waylaid me. Granny Chen’s Church Sister made a feeble attempt to invite me to church, but I could tell that her heart, like mine, wasn’t in it. I wished her all the best, and said that I appreciated the invitation, but that I wouldn’t make it. The woman, relieved, ended the call. I passed the phone back to Granny Chen.
We moved off again, me on foot, and Granny Chen on her Iron Horse (thih-bé 鐵馬 in Taiwanese) creaking along beside me. Granny Chen asked me where I lived. I told her that I lived next to the park. ‘Me too!’ she said. ‘I’ll show you. Walk beside me!’ So we strolled up to the park, Granny Chen wobbling down the centre of the road on her old bicycle, and me walking alongside, causing no small inconvenience to other road users. We talked about her son, about how he couldn’t find a wife in Kent (I said that I didn’t have any good leads, but I would keep her posted) and about her life in Pingtung. When we came to the park, Granny Chen stopped her bike to buy me some jujubes from a stall by the side of the road. She handed me the bag of fruit. ‘This is for you!’ she said. Then she took me on a loop around the block to see where she lived, followed me back to my front door, so she knew where I lived, and finally added me on LINE (Taiwan’s most popular social media app). She sent me a sticker with the image of an angel, and the word ‘Hallelujah’ in Mandarin (哈利路亞). Then she cheerfully waved goodbye and slowly pedalled off homewards.
This small encounter has been only one in a series of small acts of generosity since we’ve arrived down here in Pingtung: the stranger who saw me waiting at the launderette and brought me a hand drip coffee; the coffee shop owner who insisted on pouring me a very large whiskey (it was lunchtime) to share with him; and our wonderful driver who brought us down from Tainan, and stopped off on the way grab coffee and scones for us all—welcome fuel for when we later came to lug our boxes up five flights of stairs.
As for Granny Chen, I’ve not heard from her since, although given that we are neighbours, I’m sure she’ll pop up again, creaking along on her Iron Horse, inviting me to her church. And, having read my Old Testament, I have a slight tremor of anxiety, knowing that to accept fruit from a stranger, in certain circumstances, may be to risk all kinds of unfortunate consequences. But for now, the jujubes are delicious.
Image: Jujubes, botanical illustration. From Francisco Manuel Blanco (O.S.A.) Flora de Filipinas. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
