Phew!

This may not look like much, but it meant a lot to me. This is a photo of my sunglasses on a bench in a Taichung MRT station, about 30 minutes after I figured out exactly where and when they must have fallen out of my pocket.
The MRT in Taichung is the commuter train. Think “subway” but 50 feet above the street. We were on our way to Nobel Bookstore and were sitting on this bench waiting for the next train to arrive. It wasn’t until we got off at the stop near Nobel that I reached for my sunglasses and realized they were missing. I had to step off the train, run up and over to the other platform side, and wait for the next train heading back the other way.
I rode the train to my destination, waited for the return train, rode it back to this station, and ran to this bench, with only a fleeting hope that my sunglasses were still there. And sure enough, a half dozen trains on a busy weekend later, nobody had taken them.

These aren’t cheap sunglasses, but they’re not particularly valuable, either. It’s not so much that I lost/found a valuable possession, though I suppose I overvalue them as my sunglasses because I find it difficult to find ones I like. The true point was that I had mistakenly left them out in the open for quite some time, in a highly trafficked public space, and they weren’t stolen. It’s representative of my experience Taiwanese culture.

I’m sure theft and the usual crime exists here. But it is very commonplace for folks to leave the keys in their scooter/motorcycle with their phones still clipped to the handlebars while they go into a cafe to order coffee. You can sit down in a coffee shop, and then leave your phone, laptop, tablet, or purse (!) on the table to save your spot while you use the restroom. Your stuff is your stuff, and folks here respect that.