[quote=“wonder”]
That’s just not the way the Chinese operate, so I would like some feedback here regarding their behaviour: eg; they are LOUD!!!
:[/quote]
Just thank your luck stars you don’t live in China…Mannnn, they take loud to a whole nuther level :fume: 
[quote=“TomHill”]I am very happy for the students to come into the office, what better way of seeing that the kids like your teaching, but I totally agree that some students are just too loud, and need controlling/ talking to. Wednesday two kids were having a broom fight at the tops of their voices. The kids seemed totally shocked when I gave them a good tongue lashing. I think the teachers need to keep reminding the students that a little respect and thought would go a long way when they are in the office. Ruth and Cathy - this one’s for you! (Great students, but NOISY!)
[/quote]
Yeah, but they crashed the office computer SEVERAL times.
Altered a letter I had written and was waiting for the receptionist to do something with.
They feel free to inspect the teachers bag, and anything else the teacher may have in the office.
They dropped one teacher’s new mobile phone - and BROKE it - but had the common decency to put it back on the table.
etc. etc. etc.
The day when they find the Hello Kitty vibrator in Teacher Marsha’s purse. Sigh…what a lovely thought. 
And about half of the words in any casual Taiwanese conversation seem to belong to about ten different phrases, repeated ad nauseam.[/quote]
You two sound like such a fricken assholes. How can you say that about someone’s language and culture in a forum where some of the people here are English speaking Taiwanese.
You live here for gods sake and if you hate it so much and look down upon the language so much, get the hell out of here you loser because if you stay and complain so much it kind of looks like you can’t go anywhere else. My wife is Taiwanese and my son is learning Taiwanese. To many people around the world English sounds like grunting and just a bunch of the same whining and complaining tones. Get a clue and try to be more culturally aware or go back to the small hicksville you came from.[/quote]
Oh gosh I feel so ashamed now! Like such a hick, loser and a fricken assshole. Really how could I be so ignorant as to comment on how a language “sounds to me.” A language that as a matter of fact I heard plenty of back in the hicksville I came from, and would continue to hear were I to go back there. I should run back home immediately and stay there till I acquire some cross cultural awareness. No wait, hang on, I can’t do that because I am such a loser and because the Chinese priced me out of the market in my home town!
By the way, did I mention that I am married to a Taiwanese woman. She says the same thing about the Taiwanese language. Face it. They grunt a lot.
I agree. In English it’s pretty rare for someone to simply grunt as an agreement or confirmation. In Chinese it’s extremely common.
My students commonly answer “oh” to things like “why are you interrupting me?” and “stop hitting him.” I used to think it was just rude, now I think it is part rude and part just a Chinese language habit. Who knows maybe it’s not rude at all, the more Chinese I learn the less I run into situations where I suspect a person is being rude to me… but if they are trying to show acknowledgement and indifference simultaneously it’s working!
As much as I’m tempted to say that it’s just in the nature of Taiwanese and Chinese to be obnoxiously noisy and intentionally rude, I think much of it comes down to environment. Taiwan is a NOISY place … the traffic, the constant loudspeaker trucks, firecrackers, etc. etc. To be heard, you have to shout. After living in this environment year after year, you just get used to talking loudly. I’ve found, however, that many of my younger friends (males, mostly, although a few females too) don’t do the obnoxious shouting thing (at least not around me), and they agree wholeheartedly that Taiwan and Taiwanese are too noisy. If all of us were born in this kind of environment, I think we’d be just as noisy, regardless of what language we were speaking.
One thing I’ve noticed is that when I hear my many of my friends talking on the phone with their parents in Taiwanese, their volume tends to increase substantially, but when speaking Mandarin with others, they’re much quieter. That’s just a personal observation, but would be interesting to look into.
As for the grunting thing, I’ve found that as my Chinese has gotten better, I “grunt” a lot more as well … I’ve thought about why, and I think, at least for me, it comes down to being lazy. I think the younger generations of Taiwanese are getting lazier and lazier, and their command of Chinese is getting worse and worse. I have found that even when speaking their own language, they don’t articulate or express themselves very well. It’s certainly a far cry from some of my professors who speak absolutely beautiful Chinese and makes me realize that Chinese can be a very beautiful language.
English sounds excessively sibilant, yesssssss? To foreigners, us English speakers sound like talking snakes.
That is soooooo right on. My Chinese gal is never loud and obnoxious when speaking Mandarin. She is always polite and low-volume. I like to think that the younger Chinese/Taiwanese are less conspicuous in their converstation. When it comes to requests, however, such as asking some noodle stand owner what kind of noodles they sell, her voice is always louder.
But she is an atypical Taiwanese, kind of caught between the western influence and her own culture, so she tries to create a happy medium. I think most people who have TW men and women as close friends never experience the loud factor around them. It usually occurs around strangers and co-workers.
The fact that there is this division among Taiwanese is what confounds me and it is truly vexing. :s
[quote=“LittleBuddhaTW”]
One thing I’ve noticed is that when I hear my many of my friends talking on the phone with their parents in Taiwanese, their volume tends to increase substantially, but when speaking Mandarin with others, they’re much quieter.[/quote]My noisy acquaintances and coworkers are noisy whichever language they’re speaking, as long as they are confident in both. I do know a few whose Mandarin is quite clumsy and they do tend to drop the volume a little when speaking it, probably out of self-conciousness. I don’t take this to mean that Taiwanese is naturally louder, just that the volume level seems to follow confidence in the medium being used to express themselves. As a novice in Taiwanese I tend to be lot less strident then when using Mandarin.
I have tried to figure out why they are so loud too. The only conclusion I every reached is that they are afraid of quiet. I believe that they can not function or think without a certian level of noise. It was mentioed before that they grew up with noise everywhere. This is what they are accustom to, what makes them feel comfortable.
In general, the label of “noisy” or “pushy” or “obnoxious” is given to oppressed people by their oppressors. This same kind of argument here was also historically made about new arrivals of immigrants in the USA, long ago, the noisy Italians, the noisy Irish, the noisy Jews, the noisy Puerto Ricans, the noisy Chinese, and of course, all throughout white US oppression of blacks, those “noisy blacks”. Seems only the Japanese immigrants to America were never called “noisy Japanese.” But they got other kinds of punishment.
I don’t feel Taiwanese are noisy. The Taiwanese dialect here is beautiful and so is Mandarin here.
But when I hear mainland Communist Chinese speak Chinese on TV, their accent does sound low-class, dumb, and grating. Maybe it’s beause I hate the commies. 
deleted
Besides it might be hard to argue that you were trying to fit if you wear earplugs during social time.
I remember when I used to live with my sister-in-law and her husband - I sincerely remember thinking they were always having rip-roaring arguments before I began to understand Taiwanese and realized they were just teasing eachother.
On top of that, add TV at decibels insane and a screaming pupet show at the temple outside plus garbage truck song at least once a day.
That was how load that household was.
You should here the racket from the people that live next door to Plasmatron. Damned if they didnt start yapping at 150dbw when I turned up.
And what with their grandchildren screaming and smashing things up and down the street I could hardly hear Plasmas grinder or my hammer drill at work.
The best explanation came earlier in the thread – tonal languages work best when said loud and proud. The more tones, the more decibels.
I’ve had ABC friends stateside who went batty whenever their Cantonese-speaking relatives showed up and started up. I’ve definitely been caught out by my wife thinking that two Taiwanese guys in a night market were arguing when they were simply having a good time.
While there are a lot of people who have volume knobs stuck on high here, it seems to be a phenomenon of very small kids and people in the 45+ age range. Contrast against the “Seinfeld” episode involving the low-talker, and I honestly can’t recall the last time I had somebody speaking Chinese around me too low to be audible.
[quote=“mofangongren”]The best explanation came earlier in the thread – tonal languages work best when said loud and proud. The more tones, the more decibels.
I’ve had ABC friends stateside who went batty whenever their Cantonese-speaking relatives showed up and started up. [quote]
Oh now don’t try and get all scientific and reasonable about all of this you areshole. It is obvious that you hate Chinese people with every fiber of your being and should be castrated and then forcibly removed from this island at the earliest opportunity. Taiwan! Love it or leave it!
[quote=“Elegua”]I remember when I used to live with my sister-in-law and her husband - I sincerely remember thinking they were always having rip-roaring arguments before I began to understand Taiwanese and realized they were just teasing eachother.[/quote]I use this tactic on some of the guys who work on the same floor as my office. When they start up bs’ing with each other at full volume I pop my head out the door and act all concerned that a fight is going to start. Of course it never occurs to them that I know full well what they’re actually on about 
It usually buys me about a half an hour of relative peace, before they forget and go back to yelling again.
A lot of people start yelling when they feel that nobody is listening to them. Hmm…
