Being Mocked

didja happen to show up like that :point_up_2: and scare the diarrhea out of her?

I’ll admit I don’t carry myself much like a local. But I’m really not that scary. After a good meal especially, I’m quite docile. Perfectly cordial in most circumstances!

No, they’re mocking. Seen it too many times, and in too many situations to misinterpret it.

This is always the correct response. :sunglasses:

1 Like

Obviously you got the tones wrong and she thought you was asking, “do you have any Danish showlaces?”:rofl:

They both have the same tones…

1 Like

Bastard. You ruined by joke with your tone Nazism.

1 Like

I was talking to a friend the other day who’s just starting to learn. He said “These tonal languages are too dangerous. I could accidentally say ‘bean fuck’ when I just want to order some tofu.”

I can think of a couple comparably touchy minimal pairs in English, though. Let’s go to the bitch this weekend! Can I have a shit of paper?

Lo siento mucho.

Please, have a shit. Often heard in restaurants.

And now you’re mocking me by writing in Albanian…

best song ever about Albania

1 Like

Busted!

i do think some taiwanese just behave weird when dealing with foreigners. i ordered black milk tea a couple weeks ago and the staff said ‘oo long cha?’ my gf cleared it up with the staff that i actually wanted black tea. and told me that it was down to my crap pronunciation. well even after the correction she still gave us oo long tea. i think maybe its because taiwanese always say foreigners like oo long tea, so she couldn’t accept that a foreigner ordered a different tea…

2 Likes

I’m going to have to find some context to say this

What exactly did you say?

Not a thing…

…the bear hates oooolong tea.

I’m not trying to be an apologist because sometimes people really are rude, but sometimes Chinese speakers will try to make their Chinese sound “less tonal” and more like English for the benefit of non-native Chinese speakers.

Sorry, I’m not buying it. I’d never heard that “atonal foreigner accent” until sometime in the mid-90s, when it became popular to use it in jokes on those brain-dead Taiwanese variety shows. Around that time, I started hearing that same accent “magically” appear on the street in interactions with foreigners. Coincidence? I think not.

1 Like

Braindead Jackie Wu still does it on his shows…People don’t do it a lot to me…Probably not because of my Chinese (which is at best middling) but because they could sense it might not end well.
It’s kind of hard to get a decent conversation out of people anyway…Younger generation so poor at that.

Yeah, he’s a real asshole. I was pretty happy when he lost his shirt investing in tech.

1 Like