Sometimes, fate has a way, of surprising us all, translated…
As I rode past Taipei Main Station when I’d come back to Taiwan, I glared outward, toward the constantly changing shopping strips around the area, and my thought took me back to my college years.
Back then, I was a junior in the German department. As school started not too long ago, one day I carried on in conversation with a classmate, while we waited for the bus, as we were just getting into the heat of our discussions, my bus, 255 came rolling into the station, but, I’d not gotten on it, and waited for the next bus.
The bus was cramped up like the sardines in a can, after Shihlin Station, I’d gone toward the back of the bus, found a seat, and heard someone speaking in German. I’d tilted my head to look, it was, a man with a beard, he looked Latino, and the woman, seemed like from Taiwan, she was, ignoring the man trying to hit on her. I’d observed in silence, saw that they kept, looking out the windows, like they were, lost, waited until the man took his tour guide, and asked a high school student for help in English, I’d spoken in German, asked him, “How can I help you?”
And, I’d, not gotten off at my stop, I’d took them around, walked for about fifteen minutes to Taipei Main Station, and told him which train to took, to Jientan we’d walked from the ring on Chunking N. Road, and they’d, bought me a drink at a fast-food shop. Turns out, that the man, Thomas, with German and Brazilian descent just married the Korean woman, Susu Yeon, they’d come here for their honeymoon. That day, after they’d gone to the palace museums, they’d waited for over an hour, and Route 210 to Jientan still didn’t come by, Thomas pulled Susu Yeon onto the Route 255, planned to get to Shihlin first, then, find their way, but, they’d ridden in the opposite directions, and, Hsiu-Yen was upset, and I thought I’d bumped into some difficult people. We’d left contact information with each other, and agreed that I was going to take them to visit my department in the University.
Many years later, I’d gone to Germany to study, and was invited many times to their home, I watched them have their daughters; later on, Thomas and Susu Yeon moved away, and the letter I sent to Germany was, returned, and I’d, lost contact with them. I married, and moved to Norway, and through their eldest daughter, we were, reconnected on Facebook again, and, Tomas was just on trip to Oslo with a coworker. We’d met back up, in a foreign plan, I took my husband, Tomas and his coworker out to supper, and, we’d chit chat on the past. And now, the children of Susu Yeon and Tomas are older, and I, am no longer single either.
If I didn’t get on that next bus as I had twenty-eight years ago, and had Tomas and Susu Yeon not gotten on the wrong bus, then, we wouldn’t have begun this affinity of ours. Bumping into them on the bus, gave me a ton of surprises that came later on in my life, and, life is like that, we met, by coincidence, and, established this, strong connection.
So, this, is just how strange fate has it, you would make certain decisions in your lives, that as you looked back, it’d, seemed strange, but, without making the choices that you had made from back when, you probably wouldn’t end up, where you currently are, and that makes you wonder, that things are meant to happen that way!