Compliments

The people of Taiwan are very nice. It seems as if they are a little more open than their American counterparts--especially the men. Waiting in a scooter-shop the repairman checking the scooter out looked at me and said, “you have a very beautiful nose.” I didn’t know what to say so I said thank you, what else could I say. I looked at his nose and considered saying, “you have a beautiful nose too.” But then I thought about what was going through my head and stopped myself. Besides, his nose really wasn’t anything special.

At church, an old man came up to me in the hallway and looked at me—so I shook his hand. He said, “Wow, very handsome. Very handsome” and walked away happily.

A young boy, probably eleven, peeked on me while I was sleeping on a campout the branch had put on. The next day he said I looked very cute while I slept-not like his mom or his dad.

Well anyway, It sure is strange getting these kinds of compliments, then I realized all of them came from the male side of the species. Wow. Right when I realized this, the young boy walked by. All the times he had tried to hold my hand flashed in my head. I thought, oh no, I don’t want to be the guy that turned an 11 year old Taiwanese boy gay.