美國

美國的政治情勢像個車禍現場，全是我不知怎麼認領的一堆扭曲金屬、凌亂的碎片。我應該參加那些想奮力修復扭曲車架的人，或繼續再排列又重新排列碎片？書寫者別無選擇，只能找回拼圖碎片？

Post Office

住在台灣的外國人每天都要面對這種小誤會。我在郵局。一位小姐在幫我約我想寄出的包裹。

「裡面是什麼？」她問。

「書。」

「你要掛號嗎？」

「不用。」

「$273。你要報帳嗎？」

我沒聽清楚。她講話太小聲。

「我要爆炸嗎？」我問。「不要，謝謝。」

她開始笑。她的同事也大笑。

「我知道我的鼻子有點阿拉伯人的樣子」我正色地說。「可是我是天主教徒，而不是伊斯蘭教徒。」我想戲弄她一下。

「不是！不是你的鼻子，先生!」她說。「我沒有說爆炸，我說的是報帳：你要不要報帳？」

「喔。報帳嗎？也不用，謝謝。」

郵局裡的人都在笑。

Yoyo

Doing Everyday Business in Chinese: What Is the Problem Here?

I want to be clear from the start that I'm not writing this to complain and I'm certainly not writing it to imply that the people I deal with every day are idiots. No, I'm trying to raise certain questions about communication in English, say, vs. in Chinese. I'm trying to present what to me is a cultural mystery because, really, the people I deal with every day are clearly not idiots. The mystery is why they choose to communicate as they do.

The following runaround happens to me all the time. In fact it has happened to me so many times during my years in Taipei that I'm now going to take the trouble to type out an example of it verbatim. Today I walked into a restaurant to order food and the ordering process went like this:

At Mos Burger, a fast food restaurant. About 1:00 p.m. All dialogue is in Chinese:

SERVICE PERSON (a woman, about 23): I can help you here, sir.

ME: Yes, I'd like to order three original flavor MosBurgers, two for here and one to go. On the one to go I'd like no mayonnaise or butter.

SP: Okay, three original MosBurgers. Would you like them with a meal or a la carte?

ME: A la carte. All three a la carte. [I repeat the order exactly] Three original flavor MosBurgers, two for here and one to go, the one to go with no mayonnaise or butter.

SP: Okay. [she incorrectly repeats the order to me] Three MosBurgers, two to go and one for here. And you don't want any mayonnaise on them.

ME: No. I want two for here and one to go. And I only want no butter or mayonnaise on the one to go. The two for here are just regular, with everything.

SP: Okay. Three MosBurgers, two for here and one to go. No mayonnaise on the two for here. [she starts to pass my order to the prep people] Three MosBurgers. . .

ME: No, no. Excuse me. The one to go is for someone who is allergic to dairy. So it's the one to go that has no butter or mayonnaise. No butter on the bread or mayonnaise. The two for here are just regular, with everything.

SP: [she thinks for awhile] Okay. Do you want the original sauce on the three burgers?

ME: Yes, original sauce. Three original flavor. It comes with the sauce.

SP: Okay. So you want three MosBurgers, the one to go with no mayonnaise. Do you want mayonnaise on the ones for here?

ME: Yes. It's only the one to go that has no mayonnaise.

SP: Okay.

[Another service person has been listening. She helpfully pipes in:]

SP2: Would you like cheese on the one to go?

[I begin to feel like I'm on a sinking ship. Consider: 1) original flavor MosBurgers don't come with cheese, and original flavor is what I've now three times expressly ordered; 2) I've already said the one to go is for someone who is "allergic to dairy"!]

ME: No. I don't want cheese on any of them.

SP: Okay. Three original flavor MosBurgers, two for here and one to go, no mayonnaise or butter on the one to go.

ME: That's it.

SP: Would you like those with a meal or a la carte?

[What should I say at this point? Yes, a few years ago I'd have angrily pointed out that I'd already answered that question earlier, and that in fact I'd already given my order four times and it should all be clear by now. But I want to be helpful, the girl is in fact polite, so I just repeat:] All three a la carte.

So I've finally placed my order. But wait. Now the woman has to pass my order to the food prep people. And it happens almost just as I predict. I stand there and listen as almost the same conversation she's just had with me, only slightly less involved, occurs between her and her coworkers. In fact I have to talk to the food prep people myself to clarify what the order really is.

I go sit down at a table and wait for my food to arrive. In my experience, after all that has transpired, the chances are about 50/50 that the order will be screwed up. But when it comes, I check it and it's correct. I then go back to the counter and order a medium iced tea.

Why, you may wonder, didn't I order the iced tea to begin with? I made the omission intentionally. It's because I've been here many years and didn't want to add any further complicating elements to my order--radically complicating elements such as a drink. Since I knew I'd already have to place my order half a dozen times, I wanted to be sure the burgers were straightened out before even thinking about drinks.

This is how it has gone for me countless times in restaurants and other businesses. It was the same again today. Now let me make a few things clear.

1) This is not happening because the service person is stupid.

2) It is not happening because the service person is especially irresponsible or inattentive. No, she was polite and clearly trying to do her job.

3) It is not happening because the restaurant is busy or the service person feels rushed or is otherwise multitasking. No, I was the only customer ordering at the time.

4) It is not happening because Mos Burger doesn't like to deal with special orders. No, they deal with such orders all the time. And after all, my request wasn't even very special: I wanted three of their most common product, one with slight modifications to go.

5) It is not happening because of my Chinese. Though I'm a foreigner speaking Chinese to a native speaker, my Chinese is certainly good enough to conduct a simple hamburger order. A few years ago I used to suspect otherwise--that maybe these runarounds were my fault because I wasn't communicating clearly. Now I highly doubt it. Why? Because I regularly watch locals getting into the same kind of back-and-forth dialogues with each other that I myself just underwent. And today again it seemed the counter person had nearly as much trouble communicating my simple order to her coworkers as I originally had communicating it to her. But why? Why couldn't she just put it into a sentence and they listen to each of the separate elements of the sentence and make sense of them? Why all the back and forth for God's sake?

6) I am not exaggerating this phenomenon. In fact today I wish I'd recorded the whole thing so I could type it out in Chinese as proof. If anything, I've simplified the dialogue.

7) I'm well aware that such things occur in every culture, my own American culture included. But in the West so much back and forth is certainly not the norm. And the point is that even before walking into that Mos Burger restaurant I had a pretty good idea what was going to happen at the counter--that I was going to have to repeat myself at least four times. Because for some reason, in many situations here, repetition of details is the norm.

So what gives? There seems to be something like the following going on: When I as a Westerner go into a shop to place an order or conduct business of some kind, I expect that if I carefully formulate my request in a simple sentence that the service person listening to me will absorb my sentence and organize the elements in his or her head so as to get the desired result. But-- When the Taiwanese goes into a shop to place an order, things are quite different. What he or she expects, and the people taking the order expect, is that there will be a repetitive and circular back and forth about the order, a kind of verbal touch and go, that will continue until the order is all clear in both parties' minds. Further: If the person listening to the order misunderstands it the first two or three times around, this is not rude or inefficient service but rather just how things are expected to be. In short: Taiwanese don't mind repeating themselves: for them such repetition is part of the nature of communication. And further: Taiwanese don't bother to listen carefully, because they know whatever they hear will be repeated anyway.

Am I right about this?

My anthropological suspicions on this point perhaps get some support from another aspect of communicating with Taiwanese that I've long noticed--and one that has often driven me nearly mad. I'm talking about the tendency not to answer Yes/No questions with a simple Yes or No.

Example, on a Taipei bus:

A: Excuse me. Does this bus cross Chung-Hsiao East Road?

B: Where do you want to go?

A: Uh. It's hard to explain. I just need to know if the bus crosses Chung-Hsiao East Road.

B: Are you going to Chung-Hsiao East Road?

A: No. I'm going north of Chung-Hsiao East Road. It's straight north of where we are now. Does this bus cross Chung-Hsiao East Road?

B: What section of Chung-Hsiao East Road?

A: Never mind. Thanks for your help.

Now of course in this case the person might be commended for wanting to know precisely where I was going so as to better help me. But the gist of my question was clear. Either the bus crosses the road in question or it doesn't. The man I was talking to knew the answer, I believe. He just didn't want to tell me with a simple Yes or No. There were so many other issues to be raised, it seems.

I'm afraid this bus dialogue isn't the best example though. It's hard to capture these exchanges in print. It's true that at least weekly I will find myself posing questions to people--friends, strangers, etc.--that have simple Yes/No answers, but I will never get the answer I need. Instead I will get comments on tangential issues or answers to questions I didn't ask. I almost wish I'd kept a journal on these kinds of dialogues: some of them are almost uncanny in the sheer irrelevance of the evasion.

When I want to know if a bus crosses a certain road, why should I be made to feel that I'm trying to coax some secret out of someone?

I'm aware that in business negotiations refusing to give clear-cut answers is often a matter of strategy. And that Asians--Japanese and Chinese in particular--are particularly good at being noncommittal as the terms of a deal are hashed out. Still, why should this kind of dogged avoidance of clear-cut answers happen when the stakes of the discussion are minuscule?

I overhear Taiwanese conversing with each other and notice the same kinds of non sequitur. Namely, 1) a clearly stated order at a counter is not taken as such, but is rather a kind of invitation to go round and round restating the order's elements; 2) a direct question is not respected as such, but is instead an invitation to talk about something else.

What gives? I'm aware that linguists and people in East-West relations have probably studied these questions.

Make no mistake. I love Taiwan and its people. I've come to think of these linguistic oddities as a kind of mystery more than an annoyance. At times such runarounds are humorous because they are so predictable. But what are they grounded on?

Comments very welcome.

Haakenson Sighting: Check

About 5 p.m. the drizzle coming down and I'm standing under an awning in front of a Taipei supermarket. Across the pavement loping toward me is a slim funny-looking Western guy with his Asian wife. He's wearing a black leather cowboy hat which doesn't really match his red windbreaker. The two are carrying big bags of groceries--snacks it looks like, probably bought to celebrate the Chinese New Year--and I watch them approach as I puff from my one small cigar for the day.

The guy comes closer and I notice he's also sporting white-rimmed glasses under the cowboy hat.

Then the guy comes closer again and I realize it's a high school classmate of mine from my home town, Harland, Wisconsin. It's Paul Haakenson, who I run into once every ten years.

Paul is now teaching Chinese to expat kids in Asia. His work has taken him from Taipei to Jakarta to Hong Kong, and soon, he tells me, he'll be moving again, to Singapore. He's back in Taipei to visit his in-laws for the Lunar New Year.

I last ran into Paul about ten years ago on the north side of Taipei. Starbucks had come to Taiwan and I was sitting in one of their shops when I saw a guy at the register with a teeshirt with the name Haakenson on it--a name familiar from my high school days. I got closer and recognized him. Paul explained that he was living and teaching in Taipei. I hadn't even realized it. I'd also been teaching in Taipei for a handful of years.

I ran into Paul about ten years before that (which would be about 1992) on the outskirts of a Grateful Dead concert in Alpine Valley, Wisconsin. I was taking my Taiwanese wife to see the Dead as part of her American enculturation, and Paul showed up near our car. I think it was then that I learned he'd been studying Chinese in university. Was he married yet then?

But still my clearest memory of Paul comes from around ten year before that (1982 or so) in the basement of Scotty Berendt's house back in Hartland. It was a high school party, and Scotty had been impressing the hell out of us on his drums. Paul was promoting a cassette he'd brought of a band I'd heard of but had never listened to: the B-52s. The song playing--which is forever linked in my mind to the image of Paul Haakenson in a yuppy plaid shirt grooving in a Wisconsin basement--was "Quiche Lorraine." I hated yuppies in those days and hated everything that smelled of the country club (still do: see here), but Paul redeemed both himself and his shirt by being a weird fringe kind of yuppy. And I soon came to love the B-52s, which I continued to listen to up through their Cosmic Thing album. Only a few months ago I called up their brilliant "Private Idaho" on YouTube after hearing the song at a pub.



I've no idea of Paul's impressions of or memories of me. Did he notice that I've finally aged, as I noticed he has? We are both in our mid-40s, and wrinkles are making their tentative early maps round our eyes. He mentioned he'd read some of my online posts (I occasionally email links out to my whole address book, and his email's in there too) but I'm not at all sure these emails aren't just an annoyance to him. His politics or his social or religious ideas--I've no idea of these things. All I know is I'll run into him ten years from now and there will still be that white-bread midwest impression the name Haakenson can't help but bring with it, combined with the odd fringe element Paul always seems to sport: the faint weirdness intended, perhaps, to laugh at the white-bread in himself: the B-52s mystique, the Chinese, the black cowboy hat--and what will it be in 2022?

See you then, old classmate.

Buy Paul's CD here:

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/groovipauli

我們的罪犯

家裡太安靜，太乾淨，很無聊，我太太同意。我們去買個罪犯，真正的罪犯，跟我們一起住。罪犯有點貴，真正的罪犯，但我們還是買回家。

他很吵，一直吵：一樓吵，二樓吵。晚餐時他都大談白目的計畫。我們覺得很好玩。衣服丟在這裡，煙蒂丟在那裡。有一天我的皮夾不見:非常有趣。

過了一個月我們開始覺得麻煩：啤酒罐在這裡，衣服丟在那裡。鄰居一直抱怨，警察每天來問。我們決定把罪犯退回。不過店家不願意退錢；我們只能換別的罪犯。店裡有一個很矮的，看起來很聰明的罪犯；有一個禿頭打著太極拳的罪犯，也有一個穿深藍色睡衣，慢慢地搖晃身體的女罪犯。我想我們的罪犯比那三個好，所以我們決定不要退，就帶他回家。

可是我們的罪犯不高興。他好像有一點憂鬱，知道我們幾乎把他退回。他開始花很多時間在外面。我們聽說他開始學設計。過了三個月他設計的一個電燈得了獎。有人給他錢去歐洲。在瑞士他設計的肥皂盒也得了獎。他回家後變了一個人，有一點冷冷的。他穿的衣服都很時髦，他不喝啤酒，停止抽煙，吃晚餐時他幾乎都不說話；我問他問題，他用法文回答：真的變太驕傲，終於我受夠了，就對他吼：“嘿!你覺得我們會花四萬塊買這種無聊的罪犯嗎?”

隔天早上我們發現他離開了。桌子上有四塊和三個他得獎的肥皂盒，還有一封信。他寫說他要搬去和他的比利時男友住，並且和我們保持聯絡。

詩 (要很大聲地唸)

作家作家前無前無古人前無古人古董古董店作家寫出一家古董店賣二手字二手漢字寫錯的漢字便宜便宜作家賣顧客進來她不要漢字她看不懂漢字寫對寫錯對她都一樣她喜歡耳朵只要耳朵尤其是左邊的耳朵她開始捏作家的耳朵捏捏妳捏我的耳朵妳捏我的妳捏我的耳朵捏我不想我不想賣我不想賣妳捏我耳朵捏漢字漢字二手漢字寫錯的漢字左手寫的漢字我都賣我都賣很便宜我寫出一家古董店古董店前無古人我已經開張的古董店賣所寫錯的漢字二手漢字左手寫的漢字我不願我不願意我不願意賣我寶貝的捨不得剪掉的耳朵妳捏妳捏捏我的耳朵不沒有刀這裡沒有刀只有筆是我寫岀的筆我不願意賣我不願意你聽見了沒有?