Notes » April 2007

Surprise, I'm White!

Here's another twist on my many adventures in the back of a Hong Kong taxi.

I climbed in and gave the driver the name of our village, and he took off, as usual.

It wasn't until two minutes later that he looked at me in the rear-view mirror and saw that I was white. He was so surprised that he began babbling about how he thought I was Chinese; I mean, he was excited about it.

My accent must be better than I thought.

Right then he assumed I was fluent and started talking fast. It wasn't the first time that's ever happened, but it's still difficult for me to process a rapid stream of Cantonese. Throw in a few words that I haven't learned yet and you lose me.

But it was still fun to see that I'd made his day, and gave him a story to tell.

You can bet he'll pay more attention from now on when passengers get in his cab.

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