I think that anyone who things that standard Mandarin is some kind of secret code is a bit dumb. I occasionally encountered that in China and in Taiwan, and its like, emm duh? I mean maybe fair enough if you are speaking some rare obscure minority language, but Mandarin…
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This is the absolute Chinese learner fantasy
Getting the chance to just suddenly go all Sino on their ass
A young kid in a lift did that to me in China and I convinced him that I was Chinese but from the far west. Lol. Next time I met him I revealed my lie and he was like, ha! I knew it!
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I encountered it in China, several times but many moons ago.
People would regularly talk about me, or “the foreigners”, obviously in earshot, and they clearly assumed I couldn’t understand them. Once, in Beijing, I haggled hard with a woman in a tourist area. I used English, because she could and I was tired. When I got the low price I wanted and was getting my wallet out, she looked my in the eye and lobbed a Mandarin insult (was it, stupid egg?). I just walked away, no sale.
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This happens all the time China. I rarely run into this in Taiwan but that might be because I’m in posh Taipei.
I can’t say I’ve noticed it down south. Although, I spend way less time in restaurants here than I did in China. And when I do, the people at the next table aren’t talking about…
Anything. They’re on their phones. Maybe texting about the foreigners!
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I find that it happens in Taipei more than when I lived in China. Some people have a ‘foreigners can’t understand Chinese’ switch in their heads here and don’t flip it even if you are talking to them in Chinese. I never encountered that in China, they always just switch to Chinese if you push for that, I would say almost universally.
Now that I think of it, it happened to me this week. I was at the pool and the life guard came over to tell me that my kid couldn’t swim in the main pool, it was over 12s only. Then five minutes later after we move to another pool the guy comes over and says we can’t swim in that one either. I’m like really, come on where are we supposed to swim - apparently the kiddies have to stay in the one foot kiddy pool only. Then this woman comes over with ‘let me translate’ and I am like thanks but I can understand already. Then she proceeds to translate and I am like please I don’t need you to translate for me I already understand, but she just looks at me blankly and then continues translating what the guy had been saying. I am like OK… felt like I was taking it from two directions at once so just left, swim somewhere else next time I guess 
Happened during that air raid drill too. My kid had a drink, that he wasn’t drinking, and a cleaning lady came over to tell him that he is not allowed to drink it. We are like sure no bother, we know, he isn’t drinking it. Then another cleaning lady comes over with pidgin English clarifications ‘you no drinky in MRT Station, Ok?’ I am like we heard the the first time we understand, and then she continues with the pidgin and pointing at the drink.
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Hahaha I did that once here, kid says something about the foreigner and I just say, no, I’m Taiwanese 
Eventually I told him I’m not but he found it amusing
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I thought we were talking about strangers talking about you in Chinese. That never happens to me in Taipei.
People talking to me in pidgin English though…happens all the time. I shut them down very quick with a 我沒有說我不會講國語 or something similar.
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According to people on reddit locals should not use chinese with foriegners because why should they go out of their way to give us free lessons or something like that? So i guess these ayis were tired of giving free lessons to foriegners…according to reddit logic
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I’m not your free English teacher either.
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Ah Ok, yea my comment was about assuming you can’t understand Chinese.
For people talking about you in front of you as if you can’t understand what they are saying, that only happened to me once in Taipei: Far East Tone staff strike again. And yea I noticed Chinese do that more alright, just that they stop once they realise you can understand. The ‘I started so I’ll finish’ ‘mastermind’ approach is more common here with hanging onto the belief that you can’t understand despite evidence to the contrary.
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That is what we were talking about
I think @Malasang88 was on about the more proactive talking about you in front of you with the assumption that you don’t understand. Which is subtly different to just assuming that you don’t understand
Now I’m getting confused 
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Yeah because I was responding to this not happening in Taipei.
But yeah totally agree with how stubborn-headed Taiwanese people are. I’ve had colleagues that I’ve had long conversations with on complex topics and then they try to read the menu to me when we go to lunch. Like ok some foreigners dont learn characters but seriously come on…
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Or she’s being based and talking about the plight of the aborigines?
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Who Dat? A Chinese Magnus Magnussen?
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He looks better than Magnus in my eyes.