As my Chinese has gotten better I realized 外國人 is usually used for some type of reason.
Maybe someone wants to practice English, maybe someone is scared to speak, maybe someone is designated as the 外國人 speaker, maybe the boss likes to know so he can come say hi to the 外國人, maybe someone knows the 外國人 or had the 外國人 as a teacher or classmate or student, maybe the old people had some experience with 外國人 long ago and want to say hi, and frequently they just like to welcome or make the 外國人 feel welcome to Taiwan or to the office or shop.
There’s so many positive reasons people say 外國人 and I rarely hear them saying anything negative in Chinese.
Many times people just want to be welcoming or helpful to the 外國人 and even make it a happy fun moment.
Even just this morning while sitting in the breakfast shop a family comes in and Grandpa wants to say hi to the 外國人 and finally he says Hi in Chinese and then he says a few words in English.
If you are going to walk out and stay away every time you are getting disrespected, after a while there won’t be a lot of stores left that you can still go to.
It’s not so much the name waiguoren that bothers me, it’s more the backwards mentality of folks that goes along with it. Then again half the population is nationalist and right wing, there is a lot of national pride and racism here. Off course there is also friendly people, just it’s always the annoying ones grabbing the attention.
Granted, sometimes people do. Just depends on how they were raised. There’s lots of decent people whose parents are betel nut chewing blue truck drivers who can be rough around the edges and raise rough kids.
Well I got irked always been referred to as the 外師 at work because it was as if I didn’t have a name, and it seemed like a way to talk about me without my knowledge (although I could understand a lot I think the assumption was I hardly understood any Chinese)
Yeah and I get that for other teachers too they skip the name and just say"teacher" but I guess to me the thing is I wasn’t addressed as 外師， just referred to as such
It’s also a thing here to talk about you in front of you (or when you can still hear it), assuming you don’t speak chinese or even make a funny comment about you in English. If you let it get to you you are actually giving them what they want. Since they are supposed to be non-confrontational (apart from hair pulling in the mrt…) they are used to getting away with that.
No you don’t have to buy in a place that makes you feel uncomfortable. They should be focused on making the sale to you and not screwing around. Sales people here are pretty shit to be honest.
Because a) they could be Taiwanese - yes different races can be Taiwanese too, who wudda thunk it!
b) they would like to be referred to by their name or addressed more politely
C) would prefer their race isn’t constantly pointed out
