Stranded on the Street at Night

Several weeks ago, I got an incident that changed how I view my life and people around me. I just got a time to write it down in here because I have to make sure that my story is in line with what I suppose to tell you about.

As some of you might already knew that my husband had a scooter for commute in Taiwan. We used a third-hand scooter, bought from a friend around four years ago, two years before he married me. At that time, the condition is good enough for him to use between his work and rented-room in Hsinchu City, Taiwan.

Then, after he married with me, he moved to a new job in Taipei City, so that I will not going to be tired to commute between two cities and we can be in the same city. However, our rented apartment in Taipei City is far from school and his work. So, still, we need a scooter. He brought his scooter from Hsinchu to Taipei, around 2 hours drive.

The distance between my home to school is around 45 minutes drive. So, he has to drive me to school, then work, and pick me up after-work in school, then go home. It took a toll for the scooter because it could not follow our pace. The third-hand scooter always went for reparation at least once a month and costed a lot of money.

So, several weeks ago, the scooter just stopped suddenly in the middle of no where at night.

In the morning, I had worked so hard in my part time job and had a lot of problems too. So, my energy was drained at that point on. I just wanted to go home and sleep. At the same time, my husband also tired. The project that he handled was stuck and his boss was quite disappointed. Rough day for both of us.

When the scooter stopped, we did not know what to do. Silent for a moment. Then, I told him to just walk to the nearest scooter shop so that we can repair it. He tried to turn on the power but could not. So, I tried to look into Google Maps and searched nearest shop. We need around 45 minutes to walk there, in a good condition. Which means if there're something wrong, it took more than that, maybe 1.5 hours. +___+

As you can see in the map above, we stopped in an express way, just like a highway but scooters can enter the road. The distance to the nearest shop is around 3.5 km. When I think about it again, it was just no way we can walk there at 10 PM where there are no building in the road's sides.

We desperate and just started to walk.

Around 5 minutes later, suddenly there was another scooter stopped on our behind. Then, the owner called us. A grandpa, speaking Chinese, asked me about something.

At first, I thought he asked about the way to somewhere. But, it turned out that he asked what happened to us. I told him that we cannot speak proper chinese and with a crazy body language, I told him that our fuel is still full and we do not know what happen. Then, he said also with his body language that the nearest shop is far away from there (and we already knew about it).

He tried to explain something with his legs. Move around and he pushed me to the back of the scooter then pointed the passenger seat. Then, the understanding between us was clear, He suggested to help us pushed our scooter from behind with his foot. That's why he asked me to be in the passenger seat.

We were so shocked. We thought he wanted to do anything else rather than that. haha

He started to pushed us from behind with his foot and both scooters moved. On our way, there are a lot of traffics and we had to be very careful. So, my husband moved the scooter to the right side of the road (in Taiwan, the road is in right, not left) and the grandpa followed us.

When the nearest neighborhood appeared, my husband slowed the scooter because the shop was nearby. I felt that grandpa remove his foot from our scooter and when we stopped, he just waved his hand toward us and drove away.

We could not even say thanks to him. I screamed to him on the side of the road "Xie Xie, Xiensheng!!!" (Thank You, Sir) and he just waved his hand!

Afterwards, we walked to the shop and it turns out that the engine oil was gone. To repair it, we need to spend a lot of money and rather buy another second-hand scooter. So, we asked the shop owner about the price of a second-hand scooter which still in a good condition. He helped us a lot during the process and even helped my husband to process the new one to the police station.

From what happened to us, it makes me smile a lot. The desperation was gone. The tiredness was gone. Because of a nice grandpa.

I kept asking myself until now...

What will you do if you are the one who encounter a stranger, even a foreigner, who cannot speak your language, need your help in the middle of nowhere? Will you help him/her?

My answer is... I will.

But my husband has different thought about this. It depends on where we are.

There are a lot cases in Indonesia where someone got stabbed, raped, or robbed in the middle of nowhere at night. That's what we afraid of. What if...those person has bad intention toward us?

But again... what if those people really need help? Will you help?

Our answer... We do not know.

That's the problem that we have... maybe most of us have. I was embarrassed to say that I do not know whether I want to help or not. But that's the truth. Sometimes, our safety is more important and news made us have crazy thoughts about everything.

But then... I remember that grandpa we met. He did not care what will happen to him. He did not care whether we are bad guys or good guys. He even did not care that we are foreigners.

He just wanted to help us.

This single help... led me to a different perspective.

I will help someone, even a stranger, because there's a stranger helped me in my desperate situation.