Today's random Taiwan moment: I got in a cab to come home tonight after work. The little cabbie was delighted to have a wei guo ren (foreigner) in his car, and he talked excitedly, asking me where I am from and am I a teacher and do I like Taiwan songs? Then he asked my name. I told him in Chinese and he almost bust a gut--"Ai-li," the Chinese pronunciation, means "Love Beauty," and in Taiwanese, the other language spoken here, it means "Love you!" I guess that's really funny, for a name. He told me that his English name is Elephant because he likes elephants. Then I laughed, because "Elephant" is not a name at all! Then he told me that he went to Africa and Espana. I asked him if he spoke Spanish and he did, a little! So I directed him to my stop in Spanish--so much easier!
I asked him how much I owed in Chinese, he answered me in English, and then we said Adios! and Huan An! (good night in Chinese), and then I said Bye-Bye and he said Ciao!
Whew! The language part of my brain is sufficiently scrambled tonight!
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