Kill em with kindness

Taiwanese breakfasty treats

While the western world goes increasingly nuts over Odd Future Wolf Gang - and “Kill Them All” becomes the meme of the year - Taiwan carries on killing me with kindness.

The latest episode happened last week, when my sister was visiting. Her first morning in our apartment after a late-night landing in Taipei, I ran downstairs to our local breakfast place to grab some take-out sustenance.

In my awkward, stuttering Chinese I ordered a load of Taiwanese delights. Four zhua bing (a thick pancake) with bacon and cheese on, two soy milk drinks and – obviously – some hash browns. No problem with the first two items, but through my uneducated ear came the bad news “we don't have hash browns, but we have mai wan”. “Hmmm, this mai wan sounds tasty!”, I thought. And so I asked, in Chinese, what it was...

Unbeknownst to me, mai wan is not an undiscovered morning delicacy. It means “sold out”. But the three kind ladies behind the counter mistook my enquiry for a translation request. My innocent question started a complete circus;

The staff behind the counter frantically interrogated each other. “I don't know in English!”, came the pained responses.

The lady who had been the target of my question grabbed the phone and started calling friends and family. Still no luck.

Free with every Taiwanese breakfast

In one final, desperate bid to get rid of me, one of the ladies ran to the noodle restaurant next door and grabbed the owner. Jimmy's English is pretty good and he managed to define the words, “they no more have”... “they out stock”.

It dawned on me, “Ah! They've sold out!” and, as one of the restaurant staff scribbled all this down on a piece of paper, three little Taiwanese kids – who I hadn't noticed until then – broke into a chorus,

“sold out!”

“sold out!”

“sold out!”

In Taiwan, it seems, they always go the extra mile. They wouldn't know complacency here if it couldn't be bothered to hit them in the face. And God bless Taiwan for it. It makes the life of this idiot so much better.