First Snow and Kindness

Snow on the Lantern Glass

Many people today believe that kindness to strangers is a modern idea. In older times, they imagine, every village barred its doors at dusk and met an unknown face on the road with fear.

The first snow of the year proved them wrong at the inn's door. It came down softly in the late afternoon, and by the time the innkeeper lit the lantern, the crossroads had disappeared under the snow. The traveler had reminded him of his promise before she even took off her boots.

"My grandmother was lost on this road in a snowstorm when she was a girl," he said, brushing the snow from the lantern glass with his sleeve. "She walked in circles until she saw a light in a stranger's window, and the people in that house fed her and kept her for three nights without asking who her family was."

"So when she married into this house, she hung the lantern facing the road," said the traveler slowly, "because she wanted to be that window for somebody else."

"She said the light was never meant for us, since we already knew the way home," said the innkeeper. "It was meant for whoever was still out there in the dark."

His grandmother was not doing anything new. Some of the oldest sayings that people carry are about the duty to welcome a stranger, and they come from deserts, mountains, coasts and steppes where a closed door on a winter night could mean death. Far from being a modern softness, kindness to the guest was one of the first laws people ever made for themselves. That evening, while the snow kept falling past the lantern, the two of them set these sayings side by side.

The Guest as God's Beloved

The traveler opened her notebook at a page with a corner folded down. In Persian, "Mehman habib-e khodast", "the guest is the beloved of God". In English it is often given as "a guest is a gift from God", and both forms carry the same weight. To turn a guest away is to turn away someone whom God loves, so even a poor family brings out its best bread and its warmest blanket. An older saying in Sanskrit puts the guest even higher. "Atithi devo bhava", "let the guest be as a god to you". The word atithi is often explained as one who comes without a fixed date, the visitor nobody planned for. The saying does not say that welcome guests are holy, but that the unexpected ones are.

Imagine you arrive at a family guesthouse late at night after your bus broke down, long after the kitchen has closed. "Sit down, sit down, because there is still rice and I can warm the soup in a few minutes," says the grandmother of the house, already reaching for a pot.

"I am so sorry to arrive at this hour without any warning at all," you tell her, but she only waves your apology away. "The guest is the beloved of God, and nobody has ever warned us that God was coming either," she says with a smile.

Two Days, Then a Hoe

"Now you make every host sound like a saint," said the innkeeper. "But the oldest hosts were practical people too, and their sayings know that a guest can stay too long."

In Swahili, "Mgeni siku mbili, siku ya tatu mpe jembe", "a guest for two days; on the third day, give them a hoe". For two days you are honored and served. On the third day you have become part of the household, so you go out to the field and work with everyone else. The saying is not unkind at all. It offers the guest a way to stop being a guest and become one of the family.

In Chinese the guest's side of the bargain fits into four short words. "Kè suí zhǔ biàn", "the guest follows the host's convenience". A good guest fits in with the hours, the meals and the habits of the house, instead of asking the house to fit around the guest. The traveler said that a Turkish saying goes one step further. In Turkish, "Misafir umduğunu değil, bulduğunu yer", "a guest eats not what they hoped for, but what they find". A good guest takes what the house can give and does not ask for more.

Picture yourself on the third morning of a stay at a farm in the valley, when your host stands at the door holding two pairs of gloves. "The firewood will not stack itself, and the snow is coming tonight," he says.

"A guest for two days, and on the third day give them a hoe, so give me those gloves and show me where the woodpile is," you answer, and he grins as he hands them over.

The Stranger's Manners

There is a saying in Arabic that speaks straight to the guest, and the traveler had first heard it from a bus driver who was teasing a boy for putting his feet on a seat. "Ya gharib, kun adib", "stranger, be polite". When you are far from home, people know you only by how you behave. Your good manners are the first gift you can give to the place that is sheltering you.

"It is the other half of the welcome," said the innkeeper. "The host keeps the lantern lit, and the guest wipes his boots at the door."

Imagine you are staying in a crowded family guesthouse, and the grandson of the house notices you quietly carrying your plate back to the kitchen after supper. "You do not have to do that, because you are our guest and the dishes are my job tonight," he says.

"Stranger, be polite, as they say, and it is the least I can do after such a good meal, so let me at least dry them for you," you answer.

Whatever the House Holds

Many hosts apologize for their table, and the sayings that go with that apology are some of the warmest the traveler knew. In Russian, "Chem bogaty, tem i rady", "what we are rich in, we are glad to share". The host says it while setting out whatever there is, and it turns a plain meal into an honest one. The saying needs no ceremony at all, because what matters is not how much the house holds but that whatever it holds is shared.

In Spanish, "Mi casa es tu casa", "my house is your house". It is said so often that it can sound like polite decoration, but the traveler said she had learned to hear it as a real offer. The host is telling you that you may open the cupboards, sit where you like, and stop asking permission.

Imagine you are staying with a friend's cousin in a town by the sea, and you hesitate at the kitchen door in the morning, unsure whether you may make coffee. "Why are you standing there as if you needed a ticket to come in?" she calls.

"I did not want to touch anything without asking you first," you explain. "My house is your house, so the coffee is in the blue tin and the cups are wherever you find them," she says.

Companions on the Road

The road has its own sayings about kindness, because travelers depend on strangers more than anyone else does. In Japanese, "Tabi wa michizure, yo wa nasake", "on a journey, a companion; in the world, kindness". A journey goes better with someone beside you, and life goes better when people are kind to one another. It is a saying travelers use when a stranger shares a seat, an umbrella or an orange on a long train.

In Chinese, "Yǔ rén fāngbiàn, zìjǐ fāngbiàn", "make things easy for others, and you make things easy for yourself". On the road it is said when someone squeezes along a bench to make room or helps to lift a heavy case onto the rack. Next time it may be you who needs the space, and somebody will remember that you gave it.

Picture yourself on a slow train through the mountains when the heating fails, and the old man across from you unfolds a second blanket from his bag. "Take this, because I always carry two on this line in winter," he says.

"On a journey, a companion, and in the world, kindness, and tonight I have been given both," you say as you wrap it around your knees.

Kindness That Comes Back

The innkeeper had always believed that kindness travels in a circle, and he was pleased to hear that the sayings agreed with him. In Japanese, "Nasake wa hito no tame narazu", "kindness is not only for the sake of others". What you do for a stranger comes back to you one day, often by a road you never expected. People sometimes misread the saying as a warning against helping, but its real meaning is the opposite.

In Korean, "Ganeun mari gowaya oneun mari gopda", "the words going out must be kind for the words coming back to be kind". The saying is used most often about speech, but the traveler said it holds for every gesture at a border, a ticket window or a crowded market. If you meet a tired clerk with patience, you will usually receive patience in return.

Spanish adds a saying that refuses to keep accounts at all. "Haz el bien y no mires a quién", "do good, and never mind to whom". You do not first check whether the stranger deserves it, belongs to your people or can repay you. You simply help.

Imagine you are standing in a long queue at a border crossing in the snow, and the young officer looks exhausted after a twelve-hour shift. "Your papers, please, and I am sorry for the wait, because the computers have been slow all day," he says.

"There is no need to be sorry, since you have been out here longer than any of us," you answer kindly. Kind words going out bring kind words back, and he wishes you a warm road as he hands back your passport.

Shelter in Each Other

When the snow grew heavier, the two of them moved the bench closer to the wall, under the lantern, and the traveler read an Irish saying that seemed made for that moment. In Irish, "Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine", "people live in one another's shelter". Nobody gets through a winter alone. Each of us gives shelter in turn and receives it in turn, often from people we will never see again. In Zulu, from the south of Africa, "Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu", "a person is a person through other people". You become fully yourself only through the people around you, including the ones you have not met yet.

"And yet in English people say that charity begins at home," said the innkeeper, who liked to test a saying before he trusted it.

In English, "Charity begins at home", "your first duty of kindness is to your own family". The traveler agreed that it sounds like the opposite of the others. But she pointed out that the word begins matters most: kindness learns its first steps at home, and then it walks out of the door. A home where people are kind to each other is exactly the kind of home that keeps a lantern burning for the road.

The God of Guests

The traveler told him one more piece of old knowledge while the snow piled up on the hook above the lantern. In the old Greek world, one of the titles of the highest god was Zeus Xenios, the protector of strangers and guests. The custom of guest friendship, called xenia, bound host and guest together with duties on both sides. The host had to offer food, a bath and a bed before even asking the stranger's name, and the guest had to respect the house and never take more than was given. The old stories warned that any ragged traveler at the gate might be a god in disguise, testing how people treated a stranger. Farther east, in the desert lands, an old custom is said to have given a guest three days of food and shelter before anyone asked where they were going. Ordinary people kept these rules thousands of years before anyone spoke of modern kindness.

The Gift in Your Pocket

The innkeeper suggested a small thing to try, and the traveler said she had been doing it for years without a name for it. Before your next journey, put a few small things from your own home into your pocket: a postcard of your town, a packet of seeds from your garden, or a sweet that your region is known for. When someone on the road is kind to you, give them one of these, and ask in return for a saying from their family about guests or strangers. Write it down in their own words, with the date, the weather and the name of the road where you heard it. After a year you will carry a notebook full of the welcomes you received.

Footprints at the Gate

It was late when a farmer stamped up to the door out of the snow, asking for a bed because the road beyond the crossroads had closed. The innkeeper took him in without a question and came back to the bench smiling.

"My grandmother's lantern has done its work again," he said. "In all these years only one person ever turned his back on this light, and that was my own brother, on the morning he left after we quarreled about this house. I told myself long ago that I had forgiven him, but I have not forgotten a single word of it, so perhaps I never forgave him at all."

The evening's sayings had shown how old the welcome of strangers really is. In Persian the guest is the beloved of God, and in Sanskrit the guest is as a god. In Swahili the guest gets a hoe on the third day, in Chinese the guest follows the host's convenience, in Turkish the guest eats what is found, and in Arabic the stranger is asked to be polite. In Russian the host shares what the house is rich in, and in Spanish my house is your house and good is done without asking for whom. In Japanese a journey needs a companion and kindness comes back, and in Irish and Zulu people live through one another. Over all of them burned the same small flame, lit for whoever was still out on the road.