Missing New York

I'm getting lunch in the basement of a big department store in Taipei, near the Zhongshan MRT station. I've ordered and am waiting for my chicken leg to be prepared and decide to walk around and guangjie yixia.

Maybe check out the fruitjuice booth, the tea shop, or the cheese- and black forest cakes neatly wrapped in clear plastic around the corner. The ladies in the sweet shops of these foodcourts always smile at me, hoping I'll buy some of their cakes. From their eyes, I know what they are thinking, "Oh my Heavens, this foreigner probably knows no Chinese, but maybe he will buy!"

There's hustling and bustling as people are taking a break from their New Year's vacation department store shopping.

As I turn a corner, making my way around a daydreamy teenage girl who is walking too slowly (probably thinking about her next haircut), a middle-aged man looks at me, smiles, and says, "Hello!" in a thick Chinese accent. I say hello back and he looks like he wants to talk some more. Does he want to practice his English?

Little does he know, he has found the king of "waiguoren who like to talk to Taiwanese strangers in public".

In English, he asks me what I am doing here. I try to use only English, but with his thick accent, I assume he won't understand, and so I throw in some Chinese. Even though my Chinese is not the greatest, I am not really used to speaking English these days, especially with middle-aged Taiwanese guys in department store foodcourts.

I tell him I am studying Chinese at Zhengda. I can see he is happy to meet an American and talk English. To my surprise, he tells me that he is American and lives in New York, that he hasn't lived in Taiwan for twenty years.

"Welcome to Taiwan!" I say, a little abruptly perhaps. I listen as he tells me more of what's on his mind. Prices are expensive here, he says. He likes the prices better in the States.

He is beaming, and perhaps will feel a little more himself today. I need to excuse myself to get my lunch, so I say goodbye. He pauses, smiles, and shakes my hand, and it almost seems that he doesn't want to say goodbye to me, a friendly face that reminds him of home in old New York.