She said that she could tell that I was Taiwanese too because of my 氣質 which I thought was funny; I could sometimes tell Taiwanese people apart from Chinese people as well. She asked me to check if her shoe was too big, since her son bought the boots for her but he might’ve gotten the size wrong.

She told me that she lived alone in the apartment just a few minute-walk away, which is a coincidence since I lived around 20 minutes away from the bus stop I stood at.

On the bus, I initially sat opposite her with a hallway in between us, but she kept talking to me (as old people often do) so I sat behind her after some time.

She had told me that she was going to the senior center for a tango class, and showed me pictures of her teachers and other dance students wearing matching dresses that she said were lame. As someone who loved listening to tango music but couldn’t dance (because of 10 Dance), I had to ask what type of tango she was learning.

“Just normal, ballroom tango. Argentinian tango is too sexy and I don’t like it”. Our conversations were mundane, but I liked listening to her familiar Taiwanese-Mandarin accent, something that I don’t hear often here, even in Flushing, where the majority of the signs on businesses were written in Mandarin.

Then, in a similar fashion to how my grandmas would talk, she started advising me on how I should take the opportunities I get and leave no regrets, because time passes fast and in a blink of an eye, she was already an old woman with many regrets. She immigrated from Taipei to the US in 1974, and opened several not-so-successful Chinese restaurants.

One of her children lived in San Francisco, all the way on the west coast, and another lived nearer. Her husband had passed long ago, and she originally had three children, but one of them died in 2015; she still blames herself for that to this day.

I sat there on the bus a little uncomfortably, I didn’t know why a stranger, albeit having the same roots in Taiwan, would tell me so much about her life in this degree of detail. I could see her eyes watering and her voice growing more sorrowful, but I didn’t know how to give an appropriate response.

Maybe she was lonely and wanted someone to tell this to, so as long as she talked, I simply listened.

She had to get off before me to get to the senior center, and I had an urge for a moment to get off at the same stop to listen to her some more. But I kept sitting while she pushed the door to get off, and I’ll never see her again.

Our conversation was short, probably no longer than 15-20 minutes, but she made me feel like I was back in my home city with her familiar accent, despite her having left there over 40 years ago.

Curse Plurk for limiting one post to 360 characters >: (

對那位女士來說一定是個美好的一天吧，好溫暖的故事。希望我當老太太時也有動力去學跳舞。

噗浪的字數限制的確讓人滿困擾的。

kniomi: 希望是如此 。原本想用中文寫的，這樣就不用把對話翻成英文，但打字速度真的太慢了⋯我在這裡沒有特別認識其他台灣人，能遇到她真的是緣分。她一提起跳Tango的時候我馬上想說”Tango you say?? 👀” haha

我看到Tango的時候心跳也漏一拍！我的天，太神奇了