Friends

I was standing, waiting – no, not waiting, just watching, maybe enjoying – the friendly street vendor lady prepare my food. I had just left the school and it was a bit after ten in the evening. Louis introduced me to the vendor lady. She has a vegetarian cart off the main road, Dong-ning 路, that opens late and closes late. The cart is always cast in a fluorescent glow from the large signs above and around. But it’s not a harsh fluorescent; it’s a tainted red, blue fluorescent. It adds a kind of warm, nostalgic quality to the narrow side road. So I was standing there, watching, with the usual two or three other people standing there, watching or waiting, when a nice looking young lady rode up on her bike. I suppose at first glance she looked a bit Western. I usually try not to stare at people, and I made no exception here, but I did glance at her as she rode up, and then again as she was picking her food from the glowing cart with the nice lady and the frying pan behind it. And then she walked up to me.

“Are you a vegetarian?” she asked in near perfect English.

“Um, yes… Are you?” I wasn’t quite sure what was going on. People here have been consistently friendly, but not particularly outgoing. Someone riding up on their bike and asking if I was a vegetarian just because I was at a late night food stand is definitely not part of my daily routine.

“Oh, yes. It’s always great to meet other vegetarians. Do you recognize me from the restaurant earlier?”

So there is this restaurant across the street from school that I frequent, the one with the meal on page two, second one down (although I have tried other things there now). I had been there for lunch that day, and apparently she had been there too. I absolutely did not recognize her.

“Oh… That one?” And I pointed vaguely in the direction of the restaurant, which received a nod. “No, I guess not.”

I was thinking in my head, “Every time I go there the menu and the characters receive my exclusive attention as I hope they morph into something a bit more intelligible,” but I didn’t want my really very poor Chinese to become the topic of our conversation, so I didn't make excuses for my not recognizing everyone in the restaurant.

“Yes, I saw you there earlier. Where are you from, what brings you to Tainan?” and so on, and so on. She did an exquisite job of keeping this conversation going, as well as tactfully finding out that I lived alone, didn’t know many people, just arrived, and didn’t speak Chinese very well (though, this last point is probably pretty obvious, despite my efforts).

“I lived in Florida for a year, and I know it’s very difficult sometimes moving to a completely different place. If you’d like I could help you with your Chinese or introduce you to my friends, or maybe just show you around Tainan.”

I said any one of those would be really nice, and that it was very kind of her to go out of her way to introduce herself to me. Of course it was no problem, her pleasure. After I gave her my email address, and we exchanged some more words, she got on her bike to ride away. We had both received our meals some time ago.

A bit giddy at the prospect of making my first real Taiwanese friend, I went to pay the food vendor. As I did so I heard from behind me, “Oh, I gave her some money for your dinner.”

I thought, "You mean you just bought my dinner."

Just a real first rate lass, that one.