Put those numbers into Google Earth if you want to see exactly where I live. Or if you want to blow me up. I don't think it will work to send me mail. But it might.
I was about to leave my school today when Steven showed up. He took me to the window (we're on the 5th floor) and pointed down the perpendicular road. "That is a good vegetarian restaurant. There, with the yellow sign, the 素食 (vegetarian house). You can go there and eat. If you have a bike you can go to the one further down (he points about a block further - Taiwanese people laugh at you if you tell them you walked more than a block. Louis and I received a round of belly gut laughter from Steven's family at dinner the other night when we answered if we had walked to the bank in the affirmative). I didn't have a bike, so I went to the one within walking distance (immediately across the street).
I walked in. This was the first restaurant I had visited without accompaniment. I realized this after I walked in. Some people looked up, well most everyone looked up. 我可以吃饭吗？ "Can I eat food?" "You can eat food, sit down."
The lady seemed nice, she got me the tea, the menu, and then stood at the table waiting to take my order. This took place over a time span of about 15 seconds. I glanced at her then back at the menu. I really wanted to ask for a minute to look. I don't know how to do that, at least not in any polite manner (I could probably muster a "Go away") but it didn't matter, everything on the menu was incomprehensible to me.
这个饭都没有肉吗？"None of this food has meat, right?" She looked at me quizzically (the sign outside said vegetarian house, after all) and repeated the question more or less and told me that none of it had meat. I think this tipped her off that I had really absolutely no idea what was going on. She spat out a long string of words, none of which I caught, save for the word "rice" a few times. When she was done, I couldn't think of anything to say except "你有白饭吗？ "Do you have white rice?"
Another really odd look, and then she said something along the lines of, Yes we have white rice...but I'm wondering what do you want to eat for your meal, and if you could just tell me we could get along with things. Really, she was very pleasant, but I just had no idea what was going on. I finally asked her 你喜欢什么饭？ What food do you like?
She laughed, pointed at something and said, "This one's not bad." That was funny. The phrase "not bad" in Chinese means pretty good. The best I ever got on a Chinese test was "not bad". Willing to eat food that tasted tantamount to my best effort on any given Chinese test, I said "I'll take that one."
It was very good (maybe I was a good student?). The whole restaurant happened to be at the counter when I paid. Each of them took their turn trying to speak to me with varying degrees of success. I finally admitted, "My Chinese is really very bad" which received some laughs. I followed up with a "You all cook food very well." Which was received with sincerity. I smiled and left, so I guess we're on good terms now and I'll probably go back and order the same thing. It's the second one down on page two.
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