mishmash

This Asian couple passed me at the bus stop tonight. They asked this girl in front of me how to get somewhere and proceeded down the sidewalk. 10 minutes later, as the bus arrives, I notice that it's completely packed with people and that I had wasted my time waiting.

So I continue walking up 19th Ave. towards my apartment when I notice that I've caught up to this Cantonese/Mandarin pair. I try for the longest time to overtake them on the sidewalk, except they stop to ask me for directions this time. They had an address on a slip of paper to somewhere along the corner of 19th and Taraval.

Since I was stopping there anyway, I decided to walk them up- it was the longest, most awkward walk EVER. Not only were there moments of awkward silence, but when they tried to communicate with me, they would speak in a mixture of Cantonese and Mandarin.

I wasn't sure if they just didn't know certain words in each language or their Chinese was just really bad, but most of the time I was nodding and smiling awkwardly to let the time pass. The things that I got out of the conversation were that cars are cheaper in China right now, America's better than China because of the weather, Biochemistry is a good major, and random Chinese words like 辛苦，厉害，and 变化。