Ordering Pizza

Overall, everyone I have come into contact here is so nice. I have been out and about quite a bit for only being here two and a half weeks, but there's definitely truth to the fact that a smile goes a very long way. 

When walking on the street, people automatically stare at us because we don't look like them, but by simply smiling at them and saying "Hello, how are you?" ("Nǐ hǎo,") and "Thank you!" ("Xièxiè"), not only do we get a smile in return, but sometimes they will keep talking to us in Chinese with a huge smile on their face!

We quickly had to learn how to say "Sorry" ("bào qiàn") and "I don't know a lot of Chinese," ("Wǒ kěyǐ shuō yī diǎndiǎn zhōngwén") and then they say something back to us, still smiling, and then we wave, and then they smile and say more things, and then we slowly turn and walk away, still smiling of course. 

For all we know, they're saying "How could you come here and not speak the language?!" But everyone is so nice here that they mean it in the nicest way possible because they physically can't stop smiling at us.
Another great thing about living here with the people I live with is that two of them are very tall. This is a short man's country. Tall people are hard to come by in Taiwan. When we went to Carrefour last week, the children could not stop staring at our tall ones. I'm pretty sure people have already taken pictures of them while we have walked on the street.

And the cherry on top is little kids' reactions to seeing any of us in public places. Groups of them will run up to us and say "Hello!" and then we will exclaim "Hello!" and then they will run away giggling. 

We are basically celebrities.

Until we have to order pizza... then we are the worst people in the world.

Last night, a group of us were craving pizza, and in denial of the cafeteria food, so we went over to the apartments and attempted to order pizza online. I navigated to the Domino's webpage but when I got there, I had no idea what it said, obviously. My Chinese-reading ability extends to "you," "one," "two," "three," "he/she," and "exit."

So, after staring at the screen for about fifteen minutes and making guess-clicks on pictures that looked delicious, we decided it was in the best interest of the group of we had someone who spoke the language do it for us.

We called one of the R.A.s on duty and asked him to go to the main office and have one of the secretaries call us so we could ask her. It sounds very confusing, but at the time it actually worked. Tina called us and we asked her to order 5 large pizzas for us, one cheese, one pepperoni, and three sausage and pepperoni. She made the call and told us that she would give them our number to call when they had arrived at the apartments.

Jeff's phone went off about 30 minutes later. We had the total amount ready to go so Shannon and Chris went downstairs to make the exchange. When they came back upstairs, they had two medium pizza boxes, three small pizza boxes, and one miniature box filled with chicken wings. And a 1.25L of Coca-Cola.
Apparently, the delivery boy wouldn't take 400NT of our original price so Shannon and Chris came upstairs with change, which we happily divided among the group.

About 25 minutes and six full bellies later, Jeff's phone rings and he answers. Domino's wanted their 400NT back. Unfortunately, the man on the other end of the line didn't speak English and Jeff only knows "Bù" ("no") and "bào qiàn" ("sorry") so those words kept flying all over the place. The phone calls didn't stop there. They kept calling and calling and calling until the last phone call was another teacher who was letting us know that our delivery boy was downstairs with our pizzas. 

I took my phone and went downstairs and he basically said that we owed him 400NT. After agreeing that we did not get the order that we asked for, we still had to pay him.**

**THIS IS NOTHING LIKE AMERICA. IF THE COMPANY MAKES THE MISTAKE, THE CUSTOMER HAS TO PAY THE PRICE AGREED UPON.

Culture shock at its finest, folks.

While Shannon went back upstairs to get the money, I talked with the delivery boy for a little bit about his English, which was very good, even though he said it wasn't. The poor kid; he was just doing his job and we did not make it any easier for him. 

Oh well; you live and you learn, and we're learning something new every day! Sometimes it's really hard, but being with some really cool and supportive people makes everything completely worth it.