Coming home from Mudu, the train ride is about 45 minutes. It’s at the end of the subway line and where I was coming from was on the opposite end. When I got on it was very empty and I sat down and an elderly couple sat just across from me. They kept staring at me which was a little odd but I just smiled back at them. Once it got busier on the train I got up for another lady to sit down who was with her daughter(early 20’s). The elderly couple stopped me by saying excuse me( it through me off guard because it was in English and they were Chinese). The man asked me “are you a foreigner?” and I replied with yes. He laughed and said “my wife here thought you were Chinese but I thought you were a foreigner.” We ended up talking about my travels a bit and I ended up commenting on how good his English was. I found out that he actually taught English for about 4 years. They started talking to the woman I gave my seat to and they told me she said thank you. But when I turned towards her she actually tried to say thank you in English. So I asked them all how to say ‘your welcome’ in Chinese. We had a little chinese lesson on the train which was really funny. Soon the couple left and wanted to give me their seat saying I had a long journey still to go. When the lady and her daughter got up to leave we smiled at eachother and her daughter said “good luck on your travels” and I said “thank you” in Chinese. She commented on how well my Chinese was. I laughed because that’s mainly the one word I use a lot.
This story might not be amazing but to be able to talk to a local Chinese was pretty cool. It was a good ending to my long day to be comforted by smiles and a little conversation from people I barely knew.
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