Tuesday, July 22, 2008

More cute kid stories

I have to admit, little Taiwanese kids are so much cuter when I'm not their teacher...

Today I was out on my first post-triathlon-bike-ride (yes, I'm that lazy) and stopped at a vending machine on the bike path because I'd forgotten that I need more than 1 bottle of plain water on a hot 2-hour ride.

So this grandpa is walking along with his 3 grandkids and tells them excitedly, "Look! An American! You can speak English with her!" (As annoying as it is for me to be called a foreigner (wai guo ren) all the time, it's even more annoying for Canadians, South Africans, etc. to be called Americans all the time.) He looks at me and says, in English, "con-ver-sa-tion."

This happens a lot and usually I just say "Hello. how old are you? What's your name?" in English and then Chinese if they didn't catch the English. All 3 kids answered really well and I said, "Your English is really great!" and I told the grandpa, in Chinese, that they spoke so clearly. The oldest one (7) says, in the cutest white-trash accent, "We live in Indiana. We're just visitin'."

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