Okay. My mom would have BEAT ME if I acted like some people here do with telephones. So I am making a list of things that annoy the heck out of me with Taiwanese phone manners.
Calling 10 times in a row if someone doesn’t answer.
If I don’t answer the first time don’t call back. Just
Never EVER leaving messages.
leave a message. You don’t need to call someone 10 billion times in a row. Just leave a message and they will call you back.
Calling early in the morning.
My mom always told me to never call before noon. But these people start calling at like 7 am.
Calling late at night.
I am pretty lenient about this one. I don’t mind being called up until 11:30 or 12. But I have even had employers call me at 2 or 3 am. Arg.
Just hanging up.
NO goodbye. No “later” just click. Actually, I am VERY used to this one.It used to bother me, but not anymore.
Talking to other people while on the phone.
I don’t want to sit and wait and pay money to listen to you have a conversation with someone else. If it can’t wait, that is fine. Hang up and call me back afterwards.
“Who is you” … if you are calling MY cellphone, you should know who you are calling. I always hang up after someone says “Who are you”
This rant is brought to you by the 11 missed calls I had when I got out of bed at 10 am. And the 2 dozen subsequent calls I have refused to answer.
There should also be some "heh-a"s in Dragonbones converstation. Is that Taiwanese for “dui”?
BTW, you’re lucky if it’s just “OK” and “click” at the end, I made the experience there’s several "bye bye"s followed by more conversation before the call finally ends.
Anyhow, if anybody calls at an unappropriate time, my phone now simply pretends it’s ringing (it forwards the call to an unused extension). Unfortunately, some people eventually call on the mobile phone…
Let me add some of my favorites to this thread:
Ignoring the concept of time zones: “Oh, 3 in the morning, I’m sorry to wake you up, but …”. You’d really think they’d say they’re so sorry and hang up. No, they just continue the conversation after some puny excuse.
Ignoring the idea of weekends and (Western) holidays. I’m sorry people have to work every (second) second saturday in many Asian countries, but that’s no reason to wake me up on Saturday morning! Also, the morning of Jan. 1st is generally a bad time to call.
No idea what “roaming” means: “Could I call you back later? I’m currently in Germany.” “Oh, Deguo, blah blah blah…” No, I wasn’t trying to start some small talk, I meant “please hang up now 'caus it costs me a lot of money!”
Don’t care if you’re just eating or about to eat. I love the following scenario: Dinner is ready, I just want to sit down with my GF, then the phone rings: “Hallo?.. Wei?.. Ah . We’re just about to have dinner…Ah…Hm… […]”. WTF? Why don’t they just ask when they can call again? I also don’t understand why my GF won’t just hang up.
Thanks, SuchAFob, I think such a thread was long overdue!
I am rather fond of saying “hao, hao…hao…hou…hao” and then hanging up. It’s very old skool Taiwan groove and takes many years to master. Plus it somehow feels friendly and natural to me. Can’t really explain why.
Actually we a thread like this once in the past, but it’s still funny …
Sometimes I get a call here in the eatery:
Hello
wei … wei
Yes hello
wei … weiwei
Yes I hear you …
(in chinese) Is miss ?? there?
Who
(in chinese) Miss ??
No … nobody by that name
(in chinese) Oh … but I need to talk to her
…? I guess you got a wrong number
Wei …
Yes …
(in chinese) Can I speak to Miss ??
I just told you no one by that name … you called a wrong number
Uh ??? wei
Yeah, right … bye bye
wei …
Sorry, no time … my bread doesn’t wait …
With my Sony Ericsson k300i, I can’t hear ANYONE in the first place unless I put it on speakerphone at which point everybody within a 10 foot radius can hear me.
A: Wei?
B: Wei?
A: Wei?
B: Wei?
A: Ben?
B: Dui a!
(pause)
A: Wei?
B: Wei?
A: Ni zai nali?
B: Gong…
A: Wei?
B: …Che
A: Ni zai nali?
B: Wo hui jia
(click)
Then theres when I like to play “say ‘wei’ as many times as possible before the other person on the phone says something different.”
This annoys the hell out of me too. Happens in the US too. I’ll never understand it.
The reason people say “Wei? Wei? Wei?” is because of poor connections on the cell phone. Happens in the US too. “Hello? Hello? HELLO?? Can you hear me?”
Last week I counted my next door N’s phone ring 57 times before the caller hung up waited 30 seconds and tried again. Considering that I probablyt did not start counting until the 7th ring this is just beyond my understanding.
I would like to add the idea that every phone conversation must be conducted at FULL VOLUME as it is of paramount importance that every “hao” and “dui” must be heard by people 20 feet away.
[quote=“shifty”]I got a real kick out of this thread :bravo:
Last week I counted my next door N’s phone ring 57 times before the caller hung up waited 30 seconds and tried again. Considering that I probablyt did not start counting until the 7th ring this is just beyond my understanding.
[/quote]
I have a neighbor whose phone sometimes rings non-stop for an hour or so. I don’t get it. If nobody answers, it probably means they’re NOT THERE.
[quote]
I would like to add the idea that every phone conversation must be conducted at FULL VOLUME as it is of paramount importance that every “hao” and “dui” must be heard by people 20 feet away.[/quote]
Another byproduct of bad cell phone reception. Happens in the West, too.
Most Taiwanese phone manners I’ve come to accept and even enjoy in a Pythonesque sort of way over the years.
However I still can’t get over the way half the male (usually older) population answers the phone. I mean honestly sometimes I think I might have accidentally dialled the chimp pen in Mu Cha. No ‘wei’ or ‘ni hao’ or even a ‘na li’, just unintelligible grunts. And when they figure its a foreigner on the other side then the grunts suddenly raise a couple of decibels, but remain grunts.
WTF is it with these guys? Are they permanently constipated? Is there a large yet hidden population of tongueless men in Taiwan? Perhaps I have an uncanny knack for calling homes of gravel truck drivers?..
[quote=“kaniggit”]Most Taiwanese phone manners I’ve come to accept and even enjoy in a Pythonesque sort of way over the years.
However I still can’t get over the way half the male (usually older) population answers the phone. I mean honestly sometimes I think I might have accidentally dialled the chimp pen in Mu Cha. No ‘wei’ or ‘ni hao’ or even a ‘na li’, just unintelligible grunts. And when they figure its a foreigner on the other side then the grunts suddenly raise a couple of decibels, but remain grunts.
WTF is it with these guys? Are they permanently constipated? Is there a large yet hidden population of tongueless men in Taiwan? Perhaps I have an uncanny knack for calling homes of gravel truck drivers?..[/quote]
You just don’t understand gravel truck driver culture.
[quote=“SuchAFob”][quote=“kaniggit”]
You just don’t understand gravel truck driver culture.[/quote][/quote]
Sadly I will probably never master the intricacies of the gravel truck world.
Thinking about it, I often adopt the grunt when faced with nuisance callers. I’ve gotten the tone just right. It certainly seems to work, after all how can you argue with a grunt? I suppose you could grunt back, but then that would be silly…
Unfortunately, some people eventually call on the mobile phone…
