From trekking alone through the jungles of Papua New Guinea to almost drowning when his boat capsized on his way to Komodo Island, Tote Gallardo’s eyes light up when he talks about his dangerous experiences. Even in Taiwan, he managed to get lost in the forests near Tainan, stumbling across an illegal hunting ground with animal traps and reporting it to the police.
“For me, it’s totally normal,” he says in an animated voice. “Sometimes I don’t have a place to sleep. No food, no problem. Rain? No problem. I have to cross this mountain, no problem. I like risks. I like to find dangerous situations. This is my food. I’m not really afraid of anything.”
But Gallardo is quick to point out that he doesn’t do this for the thrill. A self-proclaimed “humanitarian street art performer,” he looks for disadvantaged people — especially children — to help by teaching them how to make finger paintings on glass. He carries a thick folder with pictures of him working with disabled children in Nepal, at a cancer center in Siberia and a landmine rehabilitation center in Cambodia.
Photo: Han Cheung, Taipei Times
His eyes light up even more when talking about the reactions of the people he’s helped, and the more fortunate ones he’s inspired to do good along the way.
“I hope to change one percent of the people,” he says. “Just one. I don’t need two.”
This is Gallardo’s second stint in Taiwan — last year, he worked with the Angel House Foundation (天使之家全人關懷協會) as well as the Mustard Seed Children’s Home (芥菜種會愛心育幼院). Starting on Monday, Gallardo will be working with children through the Childhood Cancer Foundation (中華民國兒童癌症基金會), and he hopes to find more organizations to work with during his three-month stay.
Photo: Han Cheung, Taipei Times
“I need help in Taiwan,” he says. “It’s very organized here. I need someone to introduce me. In Nepal it’s easy, I just go there, talk and start working. There’s not much bureaucracy.”
Now 55, he left his village in the South American jungle 25 years ago and has been on the road ever since. He won’t say where exactly he’s from — a Phuket News article says Brazil, the Fiji Sun says Peru, while the Times of India lists Venezuela. Gallardo, who peppers his English with Spanish words such as si, pero (“yes, but”), insists that it doesn’t matter.
“I’ve been traveling since I was 30. I’ve visited and lived in 80 countries... I have no family, nothing. I cannot get lost because I have no place to go back to. For me right now, Taiwan is my home,” he says.
Photo courtesy of Tote Gallardo
He will work as a street artist for a few months to feed himself and buy supplies, and then head off with his heavy backpack to look for people in need, whether through hitchhiking, trekking or scaling mountains.
“You need to be strong. It’s not an easy life. Maybe some people think my life is paradise because I get to go everywhere,” he laughs.
Why help? Gallardo says that people ask him that question a lot. His answer is simple: “I am a human being. As a human, I feel that it’s natural to help people.”
Photo courtesy of Tote Gallardo
One time, his heart broke when a disabled little boy in Nepal asked him the question.
“I said, ‘I want to give you some enjoyment, some hope in your life,’” he says. “In his mind, the society has forgotten them. When they see me, a foreigner, coming just to help them and asking for nothing in return, they feel important.”
He remembers Rita, a cancer-stricken girl in Siberia whose mother says she took an interest in art after working with him. There was one terminally ill girl in Vietnam who wanted to paint her last memory.
Photo courtesy of Tote Gallardo
“For a few days, they forget about their situation. What do you do when you’re a child? Paint! It’s a great feeling,” he says.
And there’s Angelo, the Italian backpacker who he took along to help out in the rice fields of Nepal. The next time they got in touch, Angelo was volunteering in an orphanage in India.
“I inspired one person,” he quips, beaming.
With travel uncertain due to the COVID-19, Gallardo isn’t sure where he’ll go next. But come September, he plans to head to Mexico and travel down to South America — back to where he came from, continuing to do what he does.
“I’ll keep going, keep going.”
For more information, visit www.instagram.com/newartglassrevolution
If a leisurely afternoon of high-end dining and watching the scenery roll by from the comfort of a plush armchair sounds like a good time to you, consider a trip on the Sea Breeze (海風號). This culinary, cultural and scenic experience is the perfect setting for a date, a celebratory outing with a small group of friends or a relaxing solo ride. The price tag is steep, especially if you consider the short distance the train actually covers over the 3.5-hour journey. But what you’re paying for on the Sea Breeze isn’t transportation; it’s the comfort, the service, the exclusivity, the
June 15 to June 21 According to legend, a giant from Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) named Si Mangangavang once built a large tatala canoe capable of carrying 16 people. He set sail southward to the Batanes in the Philippines, where he traded with the local Ivatan people. One of the goods they coveted was cowhide, which the Tao people of Orchid Island used to make armor. Through continued trade, the Tao and Ivatan forged close ties, and Si Mangangavang became good friends with a Batanes giant named Si Vakag. This story, collected in a 1998 book by ethnologist Yu Guang-hong (余光弘)
Taiwan’s renewable shortfall is a problem of execution, not resources. Japan’s long-cycle, joined-up energy planning is the model worth studying — but what Taiwan can borrow is the institutional machinery, not the politics. When Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) used his visit to Taipei last month to warn that the country needs far more electricity, he was naming a constraint its own planners already know well: Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) expects demand from the semiconductor and artificial intelligence (AI) sector alone to exceed 5 gigawatts (GW) by 2030. The harder question is not whether to build more capacity but which
One of the wildest things about the reception of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chair Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) in the international media is the way her words are presented without being contextualized, let alone challenged. The Financial Times, for example, interviewing her during her visit to New York, said that she blamed the halt to exchanges between Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) for raising tensions. “There has been no dialogue, so you can see that the situation is almost on the brink of war,” the Financial Times quoted her as saying, without any hint that the PRC, not
RSS