My Chinese reading ability is finally getting good enough that I am realizing one of my goals I set for myself when I first came to Taiwan: reading comic books in Chinese, but that’s not the interesting part of the story. I was doing some shopping at the mall in Chaiyi and made my way to a bookstore. I decided that I wanted to test my Chinese reading ability so I picked up a popular comic called Deathnote.
I made my way to the checkout counter. I was waiting patiently for the clerk to ring up my purchase when she asked me if I could read Chinese. I said I could read a little and then said in English that it was more to get me to practice Chinese. I thought that would be the extent of our conversation since I usually don’t speak to people when I’m checking out. She then tells me that my backpack is open. After a year of skateboarding my bag is pretty beat up and some of the zippers are broken causing one of the pockets to hang open. I told her i knew of this and it was no problem. I didn’t feel like or have the vocabulary to explain anymore.
Then she asked if I study or work. I told her that I work at Concordia. You know, the polite conversation kinda stuff. She then asked me if my name was Mike. I was really confused at this point and my face surely showed it. She asked again and I responded “No, it’s Matthew.” I figured that to her most foreigners look the same and she was just confused about who I was. Then she said something that really confused me because I had never seen her before. She said, but you ride a bike and skateboard. Though utterly confused, I responded yeah, that’s me. By this time she was done ringing me up and giving me my change. So we parted ways leaving me utterly perplexed and thinking I must be famous.
