Why do so many Taiwanese speak English to foreigners?

[Mr.Lin]

@bluewhale

A Taiwanese girl was telling me how a foreigner got angry with her at a coffee shop when she tried to serve coffee to him in English. He said he only wanted her to speak to him in Chinese. Apparently his Chinese wasn’t very good either and she had difficulty understanding him.

I have had one old white guy who lives in my building let off a bunch of rapid fire Chinese at me just for saying good morning to him in English. I also say good morning to the Taiwanese in my building in Chinese and none of them act all weird about that.

Some foreigners in Taiwan are strange.

No, they are not strange.
They are just people like me who don’t want to be treated differently in an environment where you look different from the locals.
I totally understand their feelings.
Check my thread about my experience.

Why would people greet me in Mandarin, not in English?

I don’t know if you have noticed it, it is very common to see people working in the airports or in any form of tourism in major cities to greet East-Asian-look-alike in Mandarin. “你好Hello”, “謝謝Thank you”, “再見Goodbye” in Mandarin. But that’s the only three words they could say in Mandarin. After “你好”, they switched to English mode again, and after the conversation, they use “謝謝” or “再見”. What’s that for? (In the past, they just greeted me in English and have conversations with me in English.) …