Remember back when you were in school in your home country, and there was that one completely dorky exchange student from Faroffistan who was always in the back of the room with a glazed-over look, unable to venture a single comment because the flow of foreign language was buzzing by so fast that even if he thought of something to say, the proper time to say it was 30 seconds ago.
That kid is you now.
We’ve all gone through it. Getting upset (and god knows it’s frustrating as heck to be stuck in a situation in which you cannot imagine your Chinese actually benefitting) is simply not a good option. A better option definitely is to treat your girlfriend as the bad girl she is and administer a solid internal spanking to her – channel your frustration into a positive channel.
Bu Lai En…, they are not English Lit. students. Then I WOULD understand. I’d rather not go into specifics here. But as I stated in my initial post, I had social contact with a handful of these people prior to this particular gathering. So I knew from that earlier gathering they were fluent in conversational English. That’s why I was a so surprised.
Oh, and Mr. mofangongren…I considered the punishment you suggested but she actually thinks a spanking is a treat :loco: , which I treat her to on a regular basis, the naughty little girl.
I think you’ll find that in our host culture that particular channel would be considered a “negative” channel - it is the Yin path, after all.
And Wonder - you haven’t answered one of the main questions here yet: did you make any effort to start any conversations with them in English? Or did you just wait for them to?
I would add in that it’s just EASIER for them. Sure they CAN speak english. But since they probably weren’t talking about you or definitely to you, it didn’t occur to them to switch to english. Like others have mentioned, there are subtles, nuances, and just plain slang phrases that they know in chinese but might not know in english. I run across this all the time.
Don’t be afraid to nudge/remind your gf of your situation. Like, when they’re all laughing, just lean over and ask your gf… Hey.what’s so funny? It’ll allow her to explain it and give a subtle reminder to the group that you’d like to hear it as well.
And if nothing else, just take it as a chance to improve your ear to mandarin. I do when I go out with my mandarin speaking friends. (though it usually devolves to chinglish)
I was at a dinner party recently at which I picked up a bit of conversation which was clearly about me. I asked the English-speaking Taiwanese girl next to me what was being said, and she said she couldn’t understand it, because they were talking in Japanese.
I can understand the OP’s frustration, as I felt a little of that too, but OTOH I fully understood that the people were all old friends who wanted to converse in languages that were comfortable for them. They were polite and involved me in their conversations a few times, in English, so I guess that helped. Mainly I was just terrified of picking up the wrong fork at the wrong time, or of dropping something in my lap with the chopsticks.
There is some truth to this. However, these locals knew his Chinese wasn’t very good and they were able to speak to him in his own language. Yet, they wouldn’t do so. According to the poster, they made no attempt to even try. I would have been annoyed as well.
There’s another element in play here. These are Chinese people getting together and it would feel strange for them to start conversing in a foreign language with each other. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I hate it when another westerner starts speaking Mandarin to me. Understanding is not the issue. Even in mixed company it just feels weird somehow. Given that the original poster was the only westerner present, it is reasonable to expect a room full of Chinese people to speak Chinese languages to each other, except when addressing the westerner. Given that the original poster knew that everyone was able to speak English, he could have just gone around and spoken to people in English. They likely would have responded. Expecting them to speak English to each other is like asking for a bunch of us to get together and speak Chinese to each other.
Hmmmm…this is funny because I’m beginning to see some revelations to this vexing situation and that is exactly why I originally posted the topic.
TS has an excellent point which I never considered. It would be weird for a western person to speak Mandarin to me. And there have been numerous other excellent reasons on both sides as solutions/answers to the “awkward” party situation.
Certainly the priority for me and others like me is to even the score and make my Mandarin as good as their English, then perhaps I could speak Mandarin when they are speaking Mandarin.
But ya know what? As soon as you start doing that, they start speaking English. And on the cycle goes. Have you ever noticed when you go to the 7-11 to buy something and you say thanks in Manadarin and they say thanks in English? It would probably devolve into something like that at the party.
Incidentally, I did on a few occasions jab my gal in the ribs and ask her what was so funny, what are they talking about, etc., but nobody seemed to notice.
As I said in one of my responses in this thread, I didn’t have a bad time at the gathering despite my lack of understanding. I was just a little disappointed and frustrated.
Actually I’ve never had that at any convenience store. But anyway, the key to that situation is be a stubborn bastard. They speak English? Let 'em. Keep trying to speak Mandarin to them. If it’s occasional exposure, like at 7-11, they’ll eventually get the idea. If it’s an actual conversation type setting, there’s two desirable outcomes - 1) They continue to speak English and you continue to speak Mandarin, and it’s clear that both of you understand each other, or 2) Eventually they break down and go back to Mandarin.
Are you kidding? My husband’s cousin had a baby and we had to attend a dinner today because the baby is a month old. Her maternal grandfather speaks about 50 words of English and can’t string any of them together with proper grammar, but everytime I’ve ever had to be in the same room with him I have had to endure his constant naming of things in English and various English verbs presented with huge clownish gestures. I’d much rather be ignored. And I do try just stubbornly using my limited Mandarine with him, but then his wife starts to talk to me a mile a minute and I can’t keep up. Ironically, she’s the only family member who will speak Mandarine to me at all. Most family members use Taiwanese with eachother and just smile nervously at me.
I know this is a different kind of situation, and at least a couple of English phrases thrown out would have been nice for the OP, but I’d just rather be left out sometimes!
Actually I’ve never had that at any convenience store.[/quote]
Hah. I had another one yesterday who couldn’t even deal with a foreigner as a customer. She got this hilarious terrified look on her face and frantically waved me over to her coworker at the next register. Her boss came over and walked her through how to ring up an order when a foreigner is present.
Oh yeah, the usual, picture menu with printed prices on it, I handed her 200NT, price was 120NT, horrors, how do you give change to a foreigner?!?!?
In case anyone’s wondering, this was at Taipei 101, at The House of the Venerable and Inscrutable Colonel. (Venerable because of his goatee, white as the dogwood blossom, a badge of unimpeachable credibility in Confucian eyes. Inscrutable because he had gone to his grave without divulging the Secret of the Eleven Herbs and Spices. )
Oh, I’ve had the “holy shit a foreigner ARGH PANIC PANIC HOW DO WE TAKE HIS MONEY?!” a lot. Just not the constant English thing. Had a few that started in English and pussied out rapidly though.
Back when I was in Taiwan studying Chinese, I would have killed for such an opportunity to practice my Chinese. Why is that those who don’t want to speak Chinese are constantly being placed these types of situations while those who really want to speak Chinese always run into those pesky Taiwanese who insist on using English?
As others have said, it’s nothing to feel frustrated, irritated, or persecuted about, or to take personally at all. Especially with such a large group of old friends, it would have been far more awkward (for them) to have struggled through the night in English to accomodate one outsider. Now if it had been a smaller gathering–say a double date–I would agree with you that the conversation should have been largely in English.
Hey, if it makes you feel any better, I recently spent 4 days in my own house with relatives who spoke Cantonese better than Mandarin–I hardly understood a word the whole time. To be fair, they were quite elderly and I could hardly understand their Mandarin anyway. Fortunately there’s a decent bar down the street…
Funnily enough, I don’t get a lot of locals speaking English to me. Probably because they don’t know dark-skinned people can speak English (and come from places other than Africa and India).
What’s wrong with that? You get to practise your Chinese, they get to practise their English - everybody wins! I’ve had several conversations which started like that, and while it seems a bit weird for both of you to be speaking the ‘wrong’ language, it can work quite well. Don’t treat it as a competition as to who can outlast who - I generally find you drift into the stronger language naturally anyway.
And on the cycle goes. Have you ever noticed when you go to the 7-11 to buy something and you say thanks in Manadarin and they say thanks in English? It would probably devolve into something like that at the party.