Joking and Keeping Distance 開玩笑和保持距離

我來美國已經一個月了，除了我室友和指導老師外，沒有跟我開過玩笑，但昨天是第一次有我不認識的美國人跟我開玩笑。

I have been here for about a month but no one joked with me except my supervisor and roommate. Yesterday was a first time an American I don't know joked with me.

我在Walmart找白菜，有個男生擋在我面前缷貨，他問我需要不要什麼蔬菜，我微笑地跟他說不用，謝謝。然後，他指著一堆菜跟我說我應該要拿一些，可是因為我不知道那是什麼菜，所以我笑著說：「可是我不知道這是什麼菜耶！」但我還是拿了一些菜瞧瞧到底是什麼菜，接著他跟我說他只是開玩笑的，但是謝謝你微笑回對。

I was looking for a cabbage at Walmart and there is a man putting all the frest vegetables on the shelves and asked me if I need any vegetables since he was blokcing the way. I smiled and said " No, thank you." Then, he pointed to a kind of vegetable and told me that I should take some of them. Then, I looked at the vegatable and told him with a smile that I don't know what vegetable is this but I still took some to take a close look. He then said that he was just joking, but thanks for smiling back.

有時候我覺得自己是個特別的訪客，因為大家對我會保持一些距離，可能也是因為這裡的亞洲人很少，這會不會也是因為美國的文化就是與不認識的人保持距離? 我確實覺得當他們會離開很近時或是要經過你身旁時，會比台灣人還常說不好意思(excuse me)。

Sometimes I feel like I am a special guest here and people keep distance from me since there is only a few Asians here. Is it perhaps an American culture that keeping some distance with people they don't know? (I do feel that people here says more "Excuse me" when we do in Taiwan, expecially when they are getting very close to you or want to pass by you.)

喔，對了，那個我不知道的菜是芹菜，因為這裡的芹菜比台灣的大又粗，所以當下沒有認出來。
BTW, I figure out what vegetable it is. It is celery. I coudn't recognize it because it is bigger and thicker than the one we have in Taiwan.