Antibiotics and English

I spoke too soon; I am not better. But I will spare you the details of my Amoxicillin-ravaged urinary tract, since that's not really my point.

I visited the tiny little pharmacy down in my area of town--strictly speaking, not quite in Taipei but on the outskirts, which is called New Taipei City--and inquired about some medicine. To my surprise, the pharmacist spoke pretty good English, which rarely happens this far out of the city. But she, like many decent English-speakers around here, approached the whole conversation from a place of what seemed to be extreme embarrassment. If she ever couldn't come up with a word (it took her a little bit to think of infection; my doctor last week kept confusing Tuesday with Thursday, much to his consternation), she apologized three or four times.

This woman has never been to America or another predominantly English-speaking country: I asked. Her English is, I would wager, about as good as my Chinese would be if I lived here for perhaps a year. She should be extremely proud of having achieved communicative ability in two of the world's most difficult and important languages, but instead she apologizes over and over for forgetting to conjugate a verb properly or not remembering the number words.

In the limited experience that I have, people here don't seem to feel that way about any other language. I have seen store-clerks who seem to feel no shame in speaking no Korean or Japanese, but who--when I take my place in the front of line--shyly try out a couple of English phrases, anxiously searching my face for signs of understanding.

Out of every five T-shirts I see with writing, four are in English. Maybe more. Some are poorly-translated or just plain silly, but they're in English. Advertisements and shop names and flashy bits of product packaging are all in proud (and often bad) English. English--in particular, American English--seems to be en vogue, to the point where people feel ashamed to have anything less than proficiency.

I want to relieve these worries. To tell them how impressive it is that they have any degree of mastery, however slim, over my language, which I know is immensely difficult. To point out that I'm the one in their country, showing up with little more than my badly pronounced 我要这个 (wo yao zhege: I want this) and 谢谢 (xie xie: thanks). To assure doctors and pharmacists and 7-11 clerks that I think no less of them regardless of English skill: it's convenient for me when people speak English, but not an expected luxury.

I would tell them all of this, but I don't speak Chinese.

Oh, well.