When I wore the shirt, it wasn't uncommon to be approached by strangers on the street asking me in very broken English if I understood the characters on my shirt. I always admitted that I had just arrived in Taiwan and didn't speak the language.
People had trouble explaining the idiom. In 2003, it was rare to find English in Taiwan and it seemed that very few people spoke it. Most would ask if I was an English teacher and when I replied yes, they would tell me that it was the perfect shirt for a teacher.
I worked in Taiwan for six months before departing as I had a working holiday visa waiting for me in Australia. The shirt traveled with me through Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand and Fiji before returning to Taiwan with me in 2004.
I continued to wear the shirt and was once again commonly approached to talk about the meaning of my shirt. It still wasn't clear to me what it meant exactly.
Sadly the shirt was put in the washer with something red and it ended up coming out with a slight pinkish tinge. That was the end of my shirt. A sad day, indeed.
Fifteen years later this idiom has found its way back to me. I started studying Chinese again at the beginning of the year and the book I am studying has a chapter on 孔子 (kong3 zi3) or Confucious. The idiom came up in the chapter. As soon as I saw it, I recognized the characters and had a chuckle as I remembered my once loved shirt.
So let's break it down ... because I can!
有: (you3) is to have
教: (jiao4) is to teach
無: (wu2) is to not have
類: (lei4) is a kind, a type or a class
It doesn't really translate but the idea is something like providing education for all people without discrimination of class.
When I read the idiom this time around, I was able to figure out the meaning as these are all characters I've studied in the past but now I know where the idiom comes from and perhaps why so many people were interested in talking to me about it on the streets.
Funny how life works sometimes.
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