![\"Friday](\"http:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/Friday-Social-300x224.jpg\" "\\"Friday")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Greg and I were invited to a small party this past Friday evening.\u00a0 It was dark when we walked there at 7:30, but the above picture shows the general direction we went.\u00a0 For those of you who have visited us in Taiwan, we went to an apartment building on Zhong Cheng Road just north of the Takashimaya Department Store.\u00a0 This is a much larger complex than the one we live in and apparently caters more to the European expatriates.\u00a0 The apartments seem to be much smaller, but they have a pool as well as large entryways and community spaces.\u00a0 The walk took about 20 minutes including stopping for a bouquet of roses and lilies for the hostess.<\/p>\n
______
\nPeople came and went from the party throughout the evening.\u00a0 Most of them were French.\u00a0 The Canadian gentleman and the German couple didn\u2019t speak French either.\u00a0\u00a0 One of the ladies was born in the Mascarene Islands, just off of Madagascar, but had lived in France.\u00a0\u00a0 One wife was from Taiwan, but had lived in France and was fluent in the language.<\/p>\n
______
\nThere was a good effort made to speak English when Greg and I were part of a conversation, but inevitably there would be something they found easier to express in French and not everyone spoke English with equal ease.\u00a0 They were very apologetic about it at first, but we assured them that we understood that when you think in a certain language, sometimes that is just the one that comes out of your mouth.\u00a0 We said in those instances we would just act like we understood and enjoy being there.<\/p>\n
______
\nMany of them also expressed regret at their poor English pronunciation.\u00a0 We told them the French accent was pleasant to our ear and not too difficult to understand.\u00a0 However, due to the mixed group, accents were a common topic during introductions.\u00a0 At one point, I was introduced to a woman who was presented as French, but had a distinctly American accent.\u00a0 I commented that she had a very clear American pronunciation and the hitherto loud conversational buzz caused by about 20 people talking in the 2 rooms ceased.\u00a0 There was a quick moment of silence and then everyone began to harass me in a friendly way for making it seem that they had bad accents.\u00a0 I smiled and reminded them of my previous testimony of finding their accents musical.\u00a0\u00a0 It turns out she had lived in the United States for a while, so my ear was correct.\u00a0 My brief moment in the spotlight ended.\u00a0 Who would have known that 5 different groups engaged in various topics would be so tuned in as to hear that!<\/p>\n
______
\nWe talked about all the normal things:\u00a0 Business and economics.\u00a0 Family and kids.\u00a0 Who has traveled where.\u00a0 (I think I may have Greg interested in Bali.\u00a0 That destination was rated highly among those who had been there.)\u00a0 Some of us were able to compare experiences with the the Taiwanese medical community.\u00a0\u00a0 Towards the end of the evening I was even able to comfortably ask some questions about customary French greetings that I had observed.<\/p>\n
______
\nMost people there had only begun studying Mandarin within the last few months, so that was a fun topic of conversation.\u00a0 We practiced on each other a tiny bit, me feeling particularly rewarded at understanding a Mandarin sentence delivered with a French accent.\u00a0 A couple of the ladies go to the local university for classes 5 days a week, which makes me jealous of their progress, but even they said that they feel limited because it can be hard to engage much with native speakers to\u00a0 practice.\u00a0 That made\u00a0 me have extra appreciation for going out exploring with a couple of friends here who are fluent in Mandarin.\u00a0 They help with translation, but at the same time, they are usually talking about subjects that I have some clue about, so I can learn a little more.<\/p>\n
______
\nBut back to the party…<\/p>\n
______
\nThe hostess, my friend, Stephanie, had spent a few days preparing many wonderful things to eat.\u00a0 This is no small thing, since she is 8 months pregnant.\u00a0 She said she mostly had fun doing it until the last day.\u00a0 I tried the bread sticks dipped in the gourmet cheese sauce, the tuna and tomato appetizers, and even the fancy goose liver spread with fig jelly on toast.\u00a0 Then there were the nibblers of prociutto,\u00a0 the perfectly crunchy cheese and pesto pizzas, the delicious quiche, and freshly prepared fruit drinks.\u00a0 I did not try the red bell peppers in oil or the pasta salad.\u00a0 Nor did I have the lettuce salad or the chorizo especially shipped from Spain.\u00a0 There were also little cubes of some sort of cheese and a red cabbage salad that I didn\u2019t attempt.<\/p>\n
______
\nEveryone was free to eat from the buffet set up while we all visited and sipped our wine.\u00a0 Then I was surprised to find dessert being brought out!\u00a0 There was an apple tart, a very moist dark chocolate cake served drenched with English cream, a sweet fresh fruit salad, and tiramisu.\u00a0 Even with select browsing, I was feeling quite gastronomically satisfied, so I could only choose small pieces of the last 3 items.\u00a0\u00a0 Greg had to finish my chocolate cake!\u00a0\u00a0 I wish I could have at least taken pictures, because it was also lovely to look at.<\/p>\n
______
\nGreg and I seemed to be the \u2018most mature\u2019 attendees, but we weren\u2019t the first or the last to leave.\u00a0 I would have liked to stay longer, but the hostess was showing signs of needing rest.\u00a0 I was feeling tired, too.\u00a0 Our new knowledge of French customs was put to use and received warmly as we said good-bye and expressed our appreciation for being included in the evening.\u00a0 We were home by about 11:30 and asleep by 11:40.\u00a0 Pleasant memories have been made.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Greg and I were invited to a small party this past Friday evening.\u00a0 It was dark when we walked there at 7:30, but the above picture shows the general direction we went.\u00a0 For those of you who have visited us in Taiwan, we went to an apartment building on Zhong Cheng Road just north of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}