Small Talk

Small talk. Used daily by everyone, yet spoken of with sneering cynicism: the weather? The local sports team? Who cares! Well, as it turns out, everyone--or, at least, they would if they knew what life without it would be like.

One of the little things you don't think about missing when you move to another country is the ability to have a conversation with the person ringing up your groceries. Yet, as it happens, once you're actually in another country, it's one of the first things you notice, and one of the single largest drivers for you to work harder to learn whatever language it is that the grocery checkers (and, hopefully, everyone else) happen to speak.

It really is amazing, though. After nine and a half months here in Taiwan, being able to have those tiny, meaningless conversations with the random people you see every day is one of the single biggest things I miss. Of course, I learned long ago the questions and answers needed for a basic check-out: numbers, how much, change, rewards card, bagging, etc. Those are just logistics, though; mechanical and automated, they aren't real conversations at all. Those are much harder; those are what I aim for with every Chinese class I attend (we don't follow a book, so it's basically Tiffiany and I asking our teacher to cover whatever topics we want to know). Listening and understanding is one thing--following what the other person is saying is usually the easy part. It's being able to respond that's hard, and that I'm still very intently working on.

All this to say, it's a minor celebration for me whenever I actually can have a little conversation with the people I interact with during the day. Whether they're a cab driver or a mom on a scooter asking me what grade I teach (happened a few weeks ago at Qingshan), it's always so exciting for me if I can talk with them--about anything. And today? I had two conversations.

My first one was at the fruit stand. My roommates and I usually frequent a certain fruit stand down the street: their prices are good, and it's pretty close, both to our apartment, and to a grocery store and the major road that leads to the gym. All factors highly in its favor. Not in its favor, however, is the man who works there. Brittany has dubbed him "Nasty Mouth" because, his age notwithstanding (he's probably in his 30s), he's missing countless teeth, with those remaining emaciated red stubs. Beyond this, he's notoriously hard to talk to (hard to understand him because of his lack of teeth, if nothing else), and yet he insists on holding long conversations with us when we're there, a fact which is made more difficult by his apparent, and very awkward, obsession with us. I've actually started avoiding the stand because I don't like interacting with him.

Today, however, I was thinking with my wallet, so I stopped on over. And, once there, I discovered a wonderful thing: he wasn't working! In his place was a lovely older Taiwanese woman (Rachel later told me she's his mother), with whom I had a nice, if short, conversation about the watermelons I was considering getting--whether they were good; whether they were red or yellow; whether red or yellow watermelons tasted better. It was such a small thing, yet it was so wonderful--besides restoring my estimation of the fruit stand (on Friday afternoons, anyway, since apparently that's when she works), it was a little touch of human contact in Chinese. And I was able to participate.

The second one was at 7-11 tonight. I absolutely love one of the ladies who works there, a middle aged woman who is always so friendly and helpful and who--and this is important--always makes an effort to speak to me, but in a slow, measured way such that I can understand her. Tonight, the topic of discussion was what I was doing here, studying or working. I told her I was an English teacher, and then she asked where. I told her, and she identified the district and we said goodbye. Such a small moment; such small talk.

But it was small talk. In Chinese. And I could participate. Life is good.