I suppose a few of you had a New Year holiday similar to mine. Personally, except for the food, it left kind of a bad taste in my mouth. It went something like this…
We arrive at my wife’s relative’s house, and we’re greeted, etc. In fact, everyone is barking so loud (over the TV) that I’m quickly getting a headache. But what kind of bothered me was that sitting around the table, the conversation was all in Taiwanese until one point when a relative turns to me and says, in Mandarin, “Oh, you speak Guoyu, don’t you.” “Yes,” I say back in Guoyu…and then they continue on in Taiwanese, beginning with a comment about me that I was not meant to understand.
Now I don’t need to be the center of attention, but it seems that if one language is spoken reasonably well by ALL people present and another language is spoken by everyone but one person, the first language ought to be the default choice for the occasion. I suppose certain things could be said here about Taiwanese social skills (or lack thereof) in general…
It was especially annoying because we just spent Christmas in America with my relatives, and naturally we got chatting about our own stuff that my wife might have felt less clued-in about, but many times, people would stop and make an effort to include my wife in the conversation. When I jumped in and tried to explain things that my wife would have a harder time using English to fully describe, my mom would quietly say, “psst, let her talk!”
I really appreciated the effort everyone in America made to make my wife feel a part of such social occasions. Too bad they don’t care about that here in Taiwan too much…
That beginning comment that you weren’t ment to understans was likely something like, “he should learn to speak Taiwanese.” I don’t know how many times I got that and it was very frustraiting because I was working, for a while anyway, very hard on my Mandarine.
OP here again. I already realize one point I failed to address completely–the logical choice for Taiwanese people to speak Taiwanese, if indeed that was what they were raised speaking. I have no problem with that, and I don’t want to make this a political issue, for God’s sake… I was just a little miffed at the lack of effort to include all people in a social occasion, and I felt like language was kind of part of it. Oh well–I’ve felt extraneous before, and I’ll probably feel extraneous again…
It probably varies depending on who your relatives are. Mine all speak Taiwanese too. They used to try to include me in the conversation until it became apparent that I didn’t want to be.
language difficulties would have become much less important then.
seriously, Taiwanese speaking people, are, well Taiwanese speaking. To spend the entire night, not to mention the main “family” occasion of the year, conversing in mandarin would be a lot more unnatural for them then you think. For the older folks quite much so. Personally, that would make me uncomfortable. It would be like if your family had to speak… well there’s probably not anything analogous to that, is there.
But did no one speak to you? That’s pretty weird. Usually I get into side conversations, these seem to increase in frequency as the night progresses (see above lol)
Of course the ultimate answer is to start learning some Taiwanese. Then at least you could follow the conversations a bit.
It’ normal. I am the only foreigner at my company and when we have some social gathering the boss will ask everyone to speak English only - which lasts for about 5 minutes and then they babble away in Chinese (which I don’t speak / understand).
I used to hang out with a group of Spanish speaking friends. We were all Spanish/English bi-lingual, but I was the only native English Speaker. We all spoke Spanish, of course. No way I’m going to expect 10 or 15 close friends to speak English to me because I don’t want to think hard enough to keep up, or because I’m just a jerk. And it’s one of the reasons I was welcome with them. And I leaned a lot from them.
I also hung out with another group of friends who were all Chinese, and all English/Bahasa Indonesia bilingual. They usually just ignored us whities and spoke Indonesian to eachother and translated when they needed to, or didn’t, and spoke English to me and what ever white folks were around. None of us spoke Indonesian–at first–after a while we could all keep up with their conversations. We leaned a lot and we didn’t feel insulted. Again, no one was rude because none of us whities were conversant in Indonesian.
But when all of the group members have only one language in common, I’d think that–just on occasion–someone should use that one common language just a bit. Yes, it might have been strange to expect my family to all speak Chinese at Christmas time with my ex-husband present, but then they couldn’t have. If they COULD have, I’d have expected them to make some sort of effort, even just a few sentences every now and then.
So, I think the OP has a valid reason to feel “extraneous.” But then again, his in-laws are Taiwanese after all. Gotta pick your battles.
You see, that’s exactly my reason for not learning Mandarin … people here all the time use Taiwanese so I wouldn’t understand a thing … learning Chinese to converse with family would be pointless … and my m.i.l. didn’t even speak Chinese, just Taiwanese and some Japanese … a smile and a head shake can go far …
But just imagine a Taiwanese woman married to a US ‘redneck’ guy … being in the US and always being spoken ‘American redneck’ to … now that’s frustrating …
When my in-laws start speaking Taiwanese, usually to avoid pissing off any of us younger volk, such as my kids’ older cousins, I either bring out the guitar, or start speaking French.
Or both, in extreme circumstances.
Usually, it’s all back to former lines.
En Gardez-Vouz! :beatnik:
It would be like your wife is deaf and insisted that everyone in your big family gathering communicates by writing on a notepad. No talking allowed. Everyone can write on a piece of paper right? So why don’t everyone do it to be more inclusive? This is what the OP is essentially asking.
Buzzardo, I think you have every right to be hurt by that behavior. I don’t care about cultural excuses, language or whatever. It’s just plain not nice. Every culture understands compassion and being nice. Especially family.
What does your wife think about it?
You know, a lot of people have difficulty putting themselves in others’ shoes. I think you and I and most forumosans have been on both sides of this situation and we’re even more sensitive to our partners’ situation when they visit our countries. But a lot of people who have never lived in another country don’t.
But still, that’s no excuse for not being nice.
[quote=“Rascal”]
It’ normal. I am the only foreigner at my company and when we have some social gathering the boss will ask everyone to speak English only - which lasts for about 5 minutes and then they babble away in Chinese (which I don’t speak / understand).[/quote]
Rascal, I can totally relate to this. I’ve worked for a Taiwanese corporation for several years and this has always been so frustrating.
But I don’t think it completely relates to OP’s situation. What’s polite and not polite in a culture can be debated, but family should be more considerate and compassionate.
My mothers side of the family are TAiwanese speakers and that means NO MANDARIN is spoken , even though every one is fluent in Mandarin.
I speak both but I prefer Mandarin, so I speak to them in Mandarin and they speak to me in TAiwanese but I still reply in Mandarin.
Taiwanese families are either Mandarin speaking or TAiwanese speaking. The TAiwanese speakers can speak Mandarin but almost always will choose not to. The Taiwanese aborigini families likely all speak Taiwanese AND Mandarin, but they will usually speak in their own language too. Thats just the way it is.
You shoulda gotten a gal from a Mandarin speaking family
Taiwanese is the vernacular language at my in-laws, except that the children don’t seem to have picked up the language and have to be addressed in Mandarin.
My parents-in-law struggle to express themselves in Mandarin, though they understand it well enough. My sisters-in-law and their hubbies usually try to keep the conversation in Mandarin as much as possible when I’m involved, but otherwise use mostly Taiwanese. It always makes the parents-in-law happy when I use my smattering of Taiwanese, which I pick up desultorily but will probably never learn well enough for meaningful use in conversation.
I think everyone makes their best effort to cater to my differentness (including the mum-in-law always going to great trouble to provide a good variety of vegetarian dishes specially for me, despite my protestations that plain rice and a couple of veggies would be fine), and I really can’t find cause for criticising anyone but myself (for being such a dummy at learning Taiwanese).
Bingo. My CNY was much the same as always. Fresh back from the Philippines, it was my fate to spend two bitterly cold nights in Sanchong. My inlaws relatives came by (my father-in-law is the eldest son, so some of the extended family usually comes by) and entered the room without even saying hello to me. They made it about three feet inside the room and then stopped in front of the TV where there was an incredibly boring game of Wii bowling going on. Wordlessly, they waited their turn and then started playing. Other relatives watched, wordlessly, and standing up. They had very little to say to each other, and nothing to say to me. Nobody offered to help mom-in-law in the kitchen, except me. No surprise that I was turned down - I don’t know her kitchen or her methods, but I can’t imagine a family dinner back home that didn’t have all the women pitching in. No drinks were offered to guests, but there was candy and nuts on the coffee table. The food, of which there was plenty, had been cooked earlier in the day and set out on the table. Half an hour before dinner, mom started covering the dishes in plastic and microwaving them. Some dishes were ok, but the veg and seafood dishes just didn’t microwave very well. Crowding around the table, some uncles sat with legs splayed, earning a sharp reprimand from my wife, who reminded them that we all had to fit around the table. They answered in grunts. Food was noisily chewed from open mouths, and ragged bones and slimy shells of shrimp were spat out into little paper boxes made out of cleverly folded pieces of junk mail. I was seated right in front of the tv that was mounted on the wall of the dining room, so faces were constantly turning in my direction whilst hanging on some minor celebrity’s every inane word. Drinks for this once-a-year feast consisted of small portions of Coke Zero served out of a two liter bottle into little paper cups. My father-in-law, knowing that I like Scotch, brought out a bottle of Johnny Walker Gold, but then spent 10 minutes looking for a glass. Eventually one was found, with a cure picture of the Little Mermaid on it. I drank the Scotch straight up. After dinner, more Wii. Everyone watched standing up. Youngest uncle came by to pass along some hongbaos to the kids and “complimented” my daughter, saying it was lucky that she had a Chinese face and a western physique. I asked him why that was lucky, and he quickly backtracked saying it was lucky that she had a western face and a Chinese physique. I smiled sweetly. He ended up getting a lecture from oldest brother on how to manage his business better. He left quickly. Windows were opened before we left, so that Dad could light fireworks from the window. One had a short fuse and blew up just outside the window, deafening all of us. The baby was crying, so we got to go home early (before midnight).
My wife says next year we’re spending the entire holiday on a beach somewhere.
ouch! xinzhuang. i got piss drunk on warm sake both nights with my brother-in-law. no cousins came by. bro-in-laws friends came by first night, bunch of laughs, sis-in-law cooked. the kids played. nice family argument the second night, lol. big fun really.
Bingo. My CNY was much the same as always. Fresh back from the Philippines, it was my fate to spend two bitterly cold nights in Sanchong. My inlaws relatives came by (my father-in-law is the eldest son, so some of the extended family usually comes by) and entered the room without even saying hello to me. They made it about three feet inside the room and then stopped in front of the TV where there was an incredibly boring game of Wii bowling going on. Wordlessly, they waited their turn and then started playing. Other relatives watched, wordlessly, and standing up. They had very little to say to each other, and nothing to say to me. Nobody offered to help mom-in-law in the kitchen, except me. No surprise that I was turned down - I don’t know her kitchen or her methods, but I can’t imagine a family dinner back home that didn’t have all the women pitching in. No drinks were offered to guests, but there was candy and nuts on the coffee table. The food, of which there was plenty, had been cooked earlier in the day and set out on the table. Half an hour before dinner, mom started covering the dishes in plastic and microwaving them. Some dishes were ok, but the veg and seafood dishes just didn’t microwave very well. Crowding around the table, some uncles sat with legs splayed, earning a sharp reprimand from my wife, who reminded them that we all had to fit around the table. They answered in grunts. Food was noisily chewed from open mouths, and ragged bones and slimy shells of shrimp were spat out into little paper boxes made out of cleverly folded pieces of junk mail. I was seated right in front of the tv that was mounted on the wall of the dining room, so faces were constantly turning in my direction whilst hanging on some minor celebrity’s every inane word. Drinks for this once-a-year feast consisted of small portions of Coke Zero served out of a two liter bottle into little paper cups. My father-in-law, knowing that I like Scotch, brought out a bottle of Johnny Walker Gold, but then spent 10 minutes looking for a glass. Eventually one was found, with a cure picture of the Little Mermaid on it. I drank the Scotch straight up. After dinner, more Wii. Everyone watched standing up. Youngest uncle came by to pass along some hongbaos to the kids and “complimented” my daughter, saying it was lucky that she had a Chinese face and a western physique. I asked him why that was lucky, and he quickly backtracked saying it was lucky that she had a western face and a Chinese physique. I smiled sweetly. He ended up getting a lecture from oldest brother on how to manage his business better. He left quickly. Windows were opened before we left, so that Dad could light fireworks from the window. One had a short fuse and blew up just outside the window, deafening all of us. The baby was crying, so we got to go home early (before midnight).
My wife says next year we’re spending the entire holiday on a beach somewhere. [/quote]
You had Wii? Luxury!
Seriously, Vs people sound like cavemen!
I had pretty much the same experience as you (apart from the Wii, you bastard), except the people are nice and try their best to include me, which I appreciate, even if I don’t have too much in common with them other than I’m shagging their kid – wait, that’s not exactly right is it?
Anyway, I had fun for the most part and it included smoking a great big stogie while picking about a ton of their organic tomatoes and scoffing many of them straight off the vines. That was cool. I hope sister-in-law heeds my advice about staking them next time, though --it’s like a jungle out there!
… and my m.i.l. didn’t even speak Chinese, just Taiwanese and some Japanese … a smile and a head shake can go far …
now that’s frustrating …
