the taxi drivers here are cool, but some of them can be so prickly...
i just moved to a new apartment by the beach and needed to take a taxi out here today. so i flagged one and asked him to take me to tiger beach ocean park, which is right across from my apartment. after several attempts, he could only understand tiger beach (lao hu tan!) so i just told him to take me there. it might be the same thing in the taxi driver's eyes, i don't even know yet.
well he started grumbling and said that i wasn't speaking clearly. i surprised him and told him that I had spoken VERY clearly even though i probably hadn't lol. he said he couldn't understand, and i was just like 'you can understand!!' hahah. man, he was really making me angry with his impertinence.
he continued to complain about something i couldn't really catch so i just told him not to worry and that i would tell him where to go when we got there. i guess he warmed up a little- he said he could understand me then, but was still worried about something or other, however soon after he started singing a hearty tune so i think he was okay.
i gave him directions, and once we got to the ocean park i asked him if it was or was not 'lao hu tan GONG YUANR?!?' of course he's like, 'OHHHH lao hu tan GONG YUANR!' which to my untrained ear was exactly how i said it but whatever. we both had a good laugh and that was that. this is not the first time that this has happened to me- at my old apartment one time the taxi driver for the life of him could not understand the location i was saying (he kept repeating my words to himself trying to work it out) and was quite visibly nervous until i got him to my area and he put 2 and 2 together. again, we just had a laugh about it. i think i actually said sorry to that guy because he seemed like he was going to have a minor panic attack. ughhhh the chinese language- love it but also hate it, what a challenge!
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