mandarin vs. taiwanese

growing up, i didn't know there was a difference between mandarin and taiwanese. my parents never taught me or my brothers taiwanese (i swear the sole reason of that was so that they could communicate to each other without the kids understanding) and i was a pathetic third-grade chinese school drop-out. so all the way up to middle school, i thought it was all the same language. believe me, i was shocked when i found out that my parents were really speaking two different languages my entire life. but by high school, i could pretty much differentiate one from the other, except for foods, which i still sometimes mix up.

nowadays, it's always weird for me to hear taiwanese spoken in public - like my ears immediately perk up because it's not very common. for example, i was at target picking up yet another prescription for vicodin (i think i have a lifetime supply of that stuff from all my surgeries. come to think of it, i probably didn't need to fill this prescription. oh well, it was only $5 anyway.) and this elderly couple comes up to the counter seeking to fufill a prescription. the pharmacist told them they'd have to order it since they don't have it in stock, but apparently the man wanted the medicine immediately. he asked "would lahngs or watahgleen have this medicine?" (i loved how he kept calling walgreens "watergreen") anyway, the pharmacist said she didn't know, they may, so he could go check. so the elderly man turned to the woman he was with, and starts speaking frantically in taiwanese to her because the target pharmacy was about to close. of course, i didn't understand what the heck he was saying, but at least i immediately picked up that he was speaking taiwanese! hey, for me, that's pretty good.

by the way, i should thank the US government for not accepting taiwanese as a language when my dad immigrated to the US. my dad told me the taiwanese translation of our last name is ku. and... if that were the case, my initials would have been kkk. :o great, just watch, people are going to google kkk and be pointed to my blog now.

question for all you taiwanese people: when people ask you what you are, do you say chinese or taiwanese? i used to say chinese until my parents heard me and started lecturing me about how i'm taiwanese. so now i have to say taiwanese. but really, i'd like to say american. of course, some certain friends, ahem, thought i was cantonese. cantonese? go figure.