Chinese is not always sufficient

I taught a class today. It's less and less of a big deal, but today was a little different. I accepted a position teaching a Saturday class every other weekend at a private Catholic school in the country, or 台南縣. I finished making my three hour lesson plan last night around two in the morning and woke up a few hours later to leave my house by seven thirty to get on the eight o'clock bus.

I got off the bus at nine sixteen. My class started at 9:15. The academic administrator was waiting in the classroom with the students seated. I could not tell if he was happy I was there, upset I was late, or did not care either way. I did not care too much. I was tired and felt like I was doing someone a favor. The class applauded as I walked in.

Three hours later, I walked out of the classroom. The students were respectful, if a bit shy. I did a good job entertaining them in English, and was satisfied but tired. Deciding not to swing by the office to make sure they understood why I was late, and that it might not be avoidable in the future; to ask when and how I get paid; to tell them they would do better to have three one hour classes of thirteen or fourteen students instead of one three hour class with forty, I headed for the bus stop.

When the driver dropped me off he had pointed at a green sign and a green awning and told me when I needed to go home to wait there. So I obediently walked up the road, the smell of manure replacing the more typical smell of exhaust.

I soon arrived at the awning and stood, looking for a sign affirming I was in the right place. I never saw one. The awning belonged to an ancestor of today's 7-11. The little store front sold juice and a few other snack like items. It was not really a store, though. Peeking past the counters and shelves I saw a back room that strongly resembled living quarters. It was like there was a large roadside indent in this person's house and they filled it with odds and ends and juice and a table and took money from the occasional passerby.

As I walked up the ancient man who was nearly a foot shorter than me stared without blinking. I turned and faced the road. I glanced back at him, still staring. There were two young grandchildren running around, and another man at a plastic table built at kids' height. He was reading the paper and seemed oblivious to everything, though there was not much to be oblivious to.

The road was quiet, and the only sound came from the children running around. No one said anything, but the old man continued to stare.

"你知道幾點鐘這輛公共汽車來到了麽?" I was not sure it was correct, but I was pretty sure it would be intelligible. I thought if I asked what time the bus came I could kill two birds, confirming there was indeed a bus that was coming to this location, and also saving myself from the trouble of constant lookout, straining to see the first sign of a bus for the next however long it would be.

I was pretty sure it would be intelligible and I was wrong. He stared at me with the blankest stare a five foot tall, ninety nine year old man with wicked eyebrows and nose hair could muster. I tried one more time, paying especially close attention to all my tones. Nothing. The scent of manure reacted more than this man.

"不好意思," I apologized, and turned back to face the road. As I did so, I heard something aside from the kids running around. The old man slowly disappeared into what I took to be his home and slowly emerged with two green, plastic stools. He pulled them apart and sat them directly behind me, side by side. There was no "請坐" as is the custom when you ask someone to sit. He simply gestured.

I sat down, and to my amazement he spoke. During the time it took him to find the chairs he had apparently planned a sentence. "我會日本," literally, "I am able Japan."

His Chinese is worse than mine, I thought. Looking at him now, he appeared very Japanese, which perhaps was just coincidence. I have heard many elderly people speak Japanese and Taiwanese, but not Chinese, as a result of Japan's colonization of Taiwan not too long ago. Before Japan left, Japanese was well on its way to becoming the national language here.

A bit relieved, I replied that I was not able to speak Japanese, which I am sure he did not understand. But he did not seem to question my presence, he did not seem uncomfortable, and I took this as a good sign that he understood why I was standing and now sitting in front of his indented house store. He got up and went into the back again.

While he was away a bus came by. I stood up and waved my arms, a bit unsure of myself. The man who was sitting at the plastic, foot high table looked up from his paper to watch me - I was probably creating one of the day's more exiting events. The bus did not notice or did not care, and kept moving. The man with the paper waved his hands dismissively at me and looked back down. I took this to mean that was not my bus.

Eventually the old man returned from his dwelling, bearing a piece of chalk and something else. He stooped down in front of me, and wrote on the road, "12點37分". I thought it was neat that he had not even adopted the now common practice of writing times in the Western format of 12:37, preferring characters.

Well, I am in the right place then, I thought, and with good company. As I smiled and nodded appreciatively at the old man he handed me the unknown object in his other hand: a small plastic cup of water, sealed in the same manner bubble tea is sealed, with a thin, plastic sheet on top. I took it from him, and looked at it, not sure if I was supposed to drink it: there was not any good way of getting at the water inside. Before I finished that thought he had jabbed a straw straight through the middle of the plastic "lid". He smiled and sat down and we waited in near silence, the kids running around.