Fili’s world

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Yeah, no doubt. This one day is a great example of the odd encounters that I experience in my everyday routine.

Irene, a lady in my class, is leaving for Madagsker tomorrow for about a month to see her children. She has New Taiwanese Dollars and wants to convert those to Euro, so she’ll be able to convert those into what ever weird currency they use back in that African island. Thing about this Irene girl, is that she looks Chinese and she’s of Taiwanese origin - having a brother and a mother here and holding a Taiwanese passport - but she has no Mandrain Chinese skills what so ever. Since she’s from Madagsker, a former French colony where everybody speaks French, then her English skills are just as bad. So, she asked me to go with her to the China Trust bank to change the money - relying on the fact that I would be able to converse with them in English. The Israeli guy taking a Madagasker Taiwanese lady to a Chinese bank to try and exchange money in English, you got to admit it doesn’t get any better than that, does it? and every time it’s the same thing - a non English-speaker clerk calling the just as bad-English boss, then they stare at her with her Taiwanese passport in their hands and an un-trusting look expecting some kind of a hoax. I open up by “ta bu shi Taiwan ren, bu shuo Zhongwen haishi Yingwen” (Which I hope means that she’s not Taiwanese and that she doesn’t speak Chinese or English), but they insist on trying a few extremelyfast Chinese sentences at her to make sure. When she responds in a confused “ehh… no, yeah yeah, <something french>”, they see that as a sign that she understands and go do whatever it is she might have agreed for them to do and then I find my self trying to make things right in Chinese.

Lunch time, it’s crowded, and the line is packing up behind me. “Gogogo, just point at something and get your ass on a chair” is all I can think of, so I end up with some beef-noodle-soup and some unrecognizable salad on the side. I hurry up to one of the tables, hoping that I’m not embarrassing myself with misunderstanding how this restaurant’s system works and maybe waiting around for nothing or sitting at the wrong place. No, it looks okay, no worries, I can start eating. Soup turns out to be fair and I’m having a relaxed lunch, doing my usual people watching routine, noticing that the restaurant is getting full. Soon enough, 5 Taiwanese grandmothers look for a place to sit, and then see me and head on quickly to catch a spot on my table. They seemed glad that I was there and were so excited when I replied to their broken English with broken Chinese. Using Chinese basics we were able to discuss all their children’s occupations, compare notes on the US and pass some cliche` statements on each other’s country. “Yeah, I do like Taiwan, people here are so friendly” as an opening statement to loads of statements like “Israel? Oh, Israel! We know, we know, Israel (/Jewish) people are very clever, know how to make money very good” (Heh, not this Israeli…). I liked the small taste of the older Mainland China Taiwanese and the way they think and act. Education, apparently, and titles were extremely important and the famous ‘face’ concept kept popping up when they didn’t understand my Chinese but wouldn’t show it or when I wrongly suggested that this fastfood restaurant might not be the grandest choice for eating lunch. I actually thought about bringing these ladies to my class so I could get applause to every mistake I do and not feel so bad about my Chinese. Good stuff.

I’m sitting down in a coffee place next to Guting MRT station when I get a phone call from a classmate that missed class today that I send an “had a wild night, eh?” SMS to earlier. He was in the area so he popped in, and I got to hear the funny story of his drinking-getting-wasted-hung-over expedition of the night before. He’s usually a really laid back guy, but even he had some crazy stories for me to listen to. Not so comfortable but always willing, I rethink once again the whole foreigner situation in Taipei. Yeah, once more, I come to a obvious conclusion that the focus is wrong - they’re not the issue - I am, the good boy that I am, either in Taipei or home.

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• b-taiwan