A nice weekend, because no
OT this week, ha.
A sound sleep. Suddenly a
music rang. Why was there a music in my dream? Ah, it was the phone music. Haven’t
got used to the new phone.
It was Jeffrey.
Then came our first quarrel…first time since we knew each other for more than a year. All quarrel
originates from a tiny thing, so did ours.
When we began talking, the
MacDonald called, he picked up the phone and spoke Mandarin to them telling
them his address. I laughed, he was angry, “why do you think foreigners are
great even they speak even worse Mandarin? I am now speaking better Mandarin,
but you are always laughing at me, ALWAYS. Whenever I speak Mandarin to Chinese
people, they would also laugh at me. I was born and has been grown up in
America, no one would teach us Mandarin. Is it my fault?!”
Oh…oh…Jeff, it is not that
thing…
Lets not talk about the
nationality, as you cannot know the background or the nationality of someone
you see in the street. If you are a American, you would have a basic requirement
that any American people can speak the American language, so do Chinese people.
We Chinese people would have a basic requirement in our heart that Chinese people
can speak our own country language. Your appearance tells people that you are a 100% Chinese, and no one would know, oh, he is actually an American, and born
and has grown up in a foreign country. So you are supposed to speak Mandarin.
But if the person does not speak the language, and the Mandarin sounds like a
foreign language, which is quite interesting and funny, so people would laugh,
but they are not on purpose, it is kind laugh.
However, if you can speak
a foreign language, people would think you are great, that is why we think
foreigners are great if they can speak Mandarin. So the thing you think we
treat foreigners well while treat you bad isn’t that thing, and it is just
about the expectation, NO discrimination.
The quarrel lasted for one
and half hour, and he finally got me. But a sad feeling came up with me, what
at all we are looking for? Most of we Chinese work hard, and struggle to send
our children to foreign countries and try to provide them the best education
and pure foreign language environment, and it came out that our children cannot
speak his own country language, and are reluctant to speak the language which
is supposed to be his mother language as they are afraid of being laughed at.
What at all we are struggling
for…