Language Exchange and NTU

Hi there everyone,

Today I had the opportunity to sit down with a native Taiwanese person for some language exchange. Now don't get your hopes too high because yours truly skills at Chinese are seriously lacking. Anyway we met up this morning and if this older Chinese guy was surprised to see a six foot African American show up, then he didn't show it. We met up through a language exchange website that uses minimal information to match up people wanting to practice their language skills. Of course I am extremely wary of any online sort of thing where there are no pictures and stuff so I can't to a thorough check on the person. The reason that I decided on this one was because we had decided to meet at a very public place. NTU. Yes the school that I will be attending for this summer program.

So we met at the metro stop and proceeded to walk to the cafe where we would have our little language exchange. First off, his English language skills are very good, and my Chinese skills are really basic. So English was the main form of communication. After ordering our tea, we sat down and he asked me what my plans were for this language exchange. My being the novice that I was simply stated that I wanted practice speaking with what little language skills that I had. Instead, he gave me a full and complete Chinese beginner lesson on things that I had never learned before nor even thought about. This guy was extremely knowleagable about the language so much so that I thought of him probably as some professor at the university or something. (After recently having a chat with some contacts back home I realized that I needed to ask him his profession to find out what exactly he does besides travel. He gave me a written language skills before we even began to talk about speaking Chinese and then when we did he was the perfect prompter.

So you know how it is in interviews where the interviewer asks the question, "so tell me a little about yourself," well in English I have no problem telling anyone about myself, but in Chinese it was a struggle. I got through the basics of name, age, where I came from, what my current profession was, where I went to school and then what I was studying in school as well, but then beyond that I was like what else did I know in Chinese. Thankfully he rescued me with some prompts such as sports, which thankfully I knew so we talked about the 法国网球公开赛 or the French Open. Next we talked about why I had come to Taiwan and where I would be studying as well. I sort of impressed myself with how I was able to remember all of the tones for many of the characters. Anyway this went on for about 30 minutes because by then I had exhausted my Chinese vocabulary, so I asked him what he wanted to get out of this language exchange.

He pulls out a book on what I can only surmise as common English phrases or new colloquial words. I should have known for the very beginning that this was going to be a very strange book. I mean once he started mentioning things from this book and I literally had no idea what they meant that this was not going to go well. Okay so all of you reading this out there comment please for me. Out of these let me know if you have heard about any of these:
JIT: Just in time- someone who is always busy
POS: Parent over Shoulder
Granny Nanny: A grandparent who is actually the parent
Hmmmmm, darn many of the real good ones are escaping me right now, but it may just be that I am old so I don't know all the new lingo and whatnot so let me know.

His reason though for learning this is the best reason, which is to watch American TV shows and understand these phrases and terms. I can totally relate to that. I mean isn't the reason that I am learning Chinese is so that I can watch Chinese movies and shows without the subtitles and avoid some dreaded DUBBED plague. Wait, you are probably hoping that I have a much better reason than that for learning Chinese right? Well sorry to disappoint you I mean have you seen... JK, JK. I would never sign up for summer language program priced at somewhere in the neighborhood of $8500 USD so that I can simply watch Chinese movies without subtitles or would I?

Moving on, after our language exchange program he invited me out to lunch. This is the first step in any Chinese relationship. He was going to be treating me to lunch so he already had an honor advantage over me. In case you don't know every encounter here is a manner of face and honor. Every single move and interaction between two people either raises your honor or lowers it. He started this and it was on. He scored in a major way by inviting my out to lunch, so I quickly followed up with a " well I'm not sure if I should." That is what I should have said, but my stomach has a direct line to my mouth sometimes and before I knew I was saying I would gladly go. There it was I had already lost a battle, betrayed by my own side. I may have lost that battle, but I wasn't going to lose the war. As we were making our way to the restaurant I began subtly showering him with praises which he politely refused of course. This was going to be tough as I tell this man was an experienced campaigner in this Art of War.When we arrived at the restaurant I finally made a bonafide score. He is older then me so I made sure that he had his seat first before sitting down myself. You should have seen me. I probably looked like some fat tom cat preening himself after devouring some poor helpless creature. Well folks this is abut all I can remember here because I am quite sure that my brain and everything else was commandeered by stomach which simply capitulated in return for food. Traitorous dog!

Okay, after that spiel time to talk about something far more interesting, FOOD! Now I have told you that I usually cannot read about 90-100% of many menus here so I usually go to restaurants that have pictures so I can make sure that what I am about to order is what I think I am reading. Since I have a handy Chinese person to translate the world seemed to be opened up to me. Most of the stuff does not translate into English and the other stuff that does sounds quite weird. I repeat no English translation. So I went with the next best thing. What would a Taiwanese person recommend. So I did not take any pictures today of the food, because I will say it. I didn't want to seem like some tourist that was invited out to lunch so he could snap pictures of food, but I will give you full accounts of what the food was that I ate.

The first thing that I had was a sort of sandwich or panini looking  thing, sorry the names of some of these things are very difficult to pronounce and all stomach react to was taste. It was filled with leeks and onions and some other various vegetables. It was extremely good. I was a little skeptical at first never really having tried leeks before, but the taste was delicious and unfortunately gone before I knew it. Next I had a ball of dough on the outside and then a ball of beef on the inside. It was really hot and juicy and so delicious. As I bit into it the succulent juices starting pouring forth from it . I will try to get the names of these late for you but the taste was just so good. After that I tried the steamed shrimp dumplings. There can never be any meal without dumplings, which of course are very delicious. My dipping sauce consisted of vinegar and soy sauce which I have come to acquire quite a taste for. Last but not least was a dish that I actually learned about it school and instantly recognized on the menu. In Chinese 酸辣汤 and in English sour and hot soup, Inside this soup was pork and a mixture of different vegetables, but what made it unique was the texture. It was a drippy or as much as of a liquid as many other soups, but it had a slight gelatinous texture to it. It even tasted sweet. I was more intrigued by simply recognizing the food than I was by the taste. It tasted okay, I may or may not have it again in the future.

We concluded the meal talking more about him since I had done most of the talking about me earlier and I learned that my partner had done quite a bit of traveling to Europe, South America, the US and Canada. He is extremely well versed in general history as well as culture. It was very delightful speaking with him long after we had finished eating. Unfortunately, I lost another battle. He picked up the bill and the fight that I made was only meager which I also think was his doing because he ordered me a ton of food and only a little for himself so that I would be complacent and slow in reflexes from grabbing the check. Its okay though, he can have round one, because round two starts next week and I will be treating him.

After I departed from my new found friend I decided that I wanted to head to the Ximen shopping area which is very famous. The clouds were rolling in once again, but I decided to risk it. Well I shouldn't have because I was only there for a seemingly short time before I realized how late it was and how tired I had gotten. Yes, I am not a robot for many of you that were wondering, and I am running mostly off of adrenaline as I get about four hours of sleep. Why, because I am a nerd and spend lots of time studying early in the morning usually around four. So, anyway that will be for another day, but I will tell you from my brief shopping trip that this place is shopping heaven with stores for everything and the word sale permanently stamped on every store.

That's all for now folks. In case you haven't noticed I am having a great time over here and I can't wait to go out on more adventures for all of you experience.

Don't forget to comment and share. I know that many of you really want pictures of this or that or maybe you want me to try out some random thing you heard or saw on YouTube so let me know!