Adam CP #5

Today I met with my conversation partner Yen Yin Chen and his friends at Momo's pizza. One of them was Somi, who is Korean and is also taking CIES classes. Another of his friends was Judy, who is a girl from China who is taking CIES classes. Another of his friends whom he brought with him was Kira, a Korean-American girl I had taken some Chinese classes with. I had told him we should go there because I had a gift certificate that would cover a medium sized pizza we could all share. However, Yen Yin Chen, Somi, and Judy had difficulty understanding the concept of a gift certificate, (I tried to explain it to them: perhaps it is a solely/largely American concept, or just difficult to translate?) as I could tell when they talked about whether everyone should pay for a portion of the meal. I had to explain that the gift certificate I used covered the full price. Yen Yin Chen also commented on the fact that he showed up a few minutes late. I said that it was fine and that he was punctual enough, which led to a discussion of the word "punctual," which I think may have been a new word for him. He said that Taiwanese people were not often very punctual, and asked me if Americans were often punctual. I said no: Americans often show up late, even though it is thought of as rude. I said that I was disappointed that Americans were not often as punctual as they should be. During the conversations between Yen Yin Chen, Judy and myself, we discussed a number of concepts and how they could translate into another language. For example, neither Yen Yin Chen nor Judy was familiar with the word "correspondence," which I explained, as I also did with the word "stereotype," which also came up in the course of our conversation.
After we finished our dinner at Momo's pizza, we went to Cafe Shisha, where everyone ordered boba tea/bubble tea, which is very popular in Asia, and (from what I was told) especially popular (and especially good) in Taiwan. In general, I was very glad to have had fun and informative conversations with my conversation partner and his friends.