I know that’s a broad topic but I have a few questions and a personal story (don’t worry, it’s funny). My first question is to those who understand Chinese well enough to know when you’re being made fun of: what do you do about it? Ever embarassed anyone wicked? Ever gotten into a fight because of it? Anyone here never done anything at all? Anybody never had it happen to them?
What kind of insults do they say about you? Funny? Mean?
Now for me…I was only in Taiwan for three short months but I got to experience enough of this. Noone made fun of my physical appearance except to say that I’m tall, which I don’t think is an insult. Usually negative comments would be when I’m with my wife (Taiwanese born, raised in America), and she steps off to the bathroom or something. Then I’d hear the “just another foreigner with a Taiwanese girl” spiel. But there was this one time at the Aikido/Judo room at Shi-Da…
I studied TaeKwonDo for three years in the US, and we always bowed whenever we entered or left the training room…PERIOD. It wasn’t optional. I assumed this to be an Asian custom in martial arts training in general, so when I started taking the Aikido classes there I continued this practice (after a few times realized that nobody did it though, and stopped). Anyways, it was something like my second or third day there, and I got there super early to stretch out and practice my falls. While I was practicing a group of xiaojies came in and sat down on the dojo mat itself, and brought out food and drinks! That was enough of an insult to the dojo to piss me off something fierce, but they weren’t practioners so I let it go. As I stepped off the mat, I bowed and they looked at each then said, “Huanying Guanglin!” loudly and laughed. I used the restroom and came back, bowed again, and sure enough they all said “Huanying Guanglin!” again.
I showed no response whatsoever, because I realized it was a perfect opportunity for me to pretend I don’t understand Chinese. It worked. The conversation began with one asking the other, “Ni zai chuan dingziku ma?”, which means, “Are you wearing thongs?” Hahahaha, I could barely contain myself. The girl answered that she wears thongs almost always, and then some other girls said they do too. Hahahahaha, oh man it just got better. They started talking about their boyfriends, which quickly led to sneaking out of the dorm, sex, etc., all the while them thinking me oblivious.
As the time for class to start came closer, some more Aikido students came in, and I greeted them loudly in Mandarin, and we started up a conversation. I looked over at the astonished girls and gave my best “you’re busted” wink, and they turned red as beets and got out of their fast, unfortunately leaving quite a food mess behind :fume:
I think that was one of my better experiences in Taiwan