I like these people.

I like these people, the Taiwanese. Whether it's Tzu Hui's parents, cousins, uncles, or the strangers who stop to help us, there is an unaffected quality. There seems an absence of suspicion. A generosity in place of grasping, it's deep in the culture, and seems to have seeped into the genetic makeup. There are few Westerners. We see less than a dozen the whole trip. Maybe the Taiwanese are not bored with tourists, or don't see us as a source of income the way it can feel in other places I've visited. If anyone even notices us, it's usually to offer help, a nod, or to try their English, "bye bye" the bus driver says. While teenagers and college students dress like, act like the ones I teach at FIT. I feel at home.

On our first afternoon, Tzu Hui and BongChen, or rather Sabrina and Rainbow, pick us up at our hotel. They have Chinese names and English ones -- names chosen not because they are translations, simply because they like them. Rainbow tells me Monique sounds like the Chinese word for Jasmine. I like it and adopt it for my own. That first afternoon we meet Sabrina's brother Jimmy, and then our waiter's name is Vivid. I can't remember Jimmy's Chinese name. I don't need to. He's more American than I am in conversation. Jed and Jimmy get into a deep discussion about the World Series -- plays, players, possible trades.

Sabrina is at this moment more beautiful than anyone I know. She is radiant with wedding at week's end. She is thinner than in school, and her dark hair shimmers and swings. Rainbow beams. As Jed says, he looks as if he's died and gone to heaven by winning this gorgeous, smart woman. He is warm and funny, intelligent and easy to be with. As we get to know him, he welcomes us to his heart and into his home, the home he shares with Sabrina and right now Jimmy. We settle in on their couch, drink tea and chat comfortably. I am grateful to Sabrina for inviting us along on this adventure. But, Jed made it all happen. Three days before I had been teaching a class. Jed kept the flight numbers, the passports, the lists, got the money, the snacks, repacked the suitcases. I watch him chatting amiably with these people from my life, not his, and I love him for it, for everything. It is going well.