Taxi Driver Questions

I am not surprised I spent a week deciding what my first real blog entry should be. Then, it hit me like a ton of bricks... or like how taxi drivers almost hit bike commuters on a regular basis here in Chile.

My boyfriend calls these the Taxi Driver Questions. I am asked them almost every time I open my mouth here. For the first month, I loved them. Talking about yourself in the simplest verb tenses of another language is edifying. For the next year, I hated them. Is no there no creative way to get to know a person on this planet, or at least in this city? Now, I just answer them.



¿De donde eres tú?

I'm from California. I'm also from the United States, but I do appreciate being from a state that often helps skip this middleman:

¿De que parte?

Los Angeles. Anyone who is from anywhere near Los Angeles knows that Long Beach is not Los Angeles, but that's okay.

¿Que haces en Chile? Eres Estudiante?

Hell no. Just workin' for peanuts at otherwise better jobs than I could ever get Stateside.

¿Pero por qué Chile?

Good question. It's actually my favorite. My father is Chilean, I visited a few times growing up, and it was always a presence in my life like any specter of identity first-generationers are bound to feel. Who knows if I ever would have been here if that had not been the case? Can I have even been without it being the case?

Anyway, what I actually say is...

I arrived for a South American vacation with a good friend before Christmas 2012. Within a month, I realized there was some sort of opportunity in front of me. Just that much. But I got a job in a bar, started learning vocabulary like arriendo and garantía, and everything fell into place from there. On that front, it bears mentioning that my dual nationality has helped out.

¿Cuando llegaste?

Over a year ago. This question is boring, unless the answer is one week or ten years.

¿Y te gusta Chile?

NO.

...sarcasm translates into Spanish just as poorly as it translates over the internet, and do I miss it! Of course I like Chile, that's why I'm here. I would wager that's why the majority of foreigners are here. Those aren't the interesting stories though, and maybe that's why taxi drivers ask these questions anyway.




Do Taxi Driver Questions happen to other foreigners in other foreign places? I really don't know, this is my first time experiencing this perspective. And, hey, as long as it makes for an easy start to a new blog, I'm not complaining.