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The Chinese can be blunt | ||
Tags: Mandarin | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| yawn Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5237 days ago 141 posts - 209 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, FrenchC2, SpanishC2 Studies: GermanB1 | Message 49 of 52 10 February 2011 at 4:18am | IP Logged |
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This thread has been extremely amusing to read. :)
I'm Chinese too, although I've been sort of "whitewashed" after living in predominantly Westernized countries for a while. I still remember visiting my grandfather's family in China, and one of his sisters had a granddaughter who was 11 years old (I was 14 at the time). Right after introducing ourselves, she began making comments about my appearance, and even reached forward to straighten the collar of my shirt, haha. She also did things like randomly brushing lint off my jacket and picking some of it out of my hair. It was freaky because she was acting like my mom even though she was 3 years younger than me! I was really shocked at first and thought she was being unnecessarily rude and bold. I thought about telling her mom, but then realized that her mother acted exactly the same way towards my mom lol! I ended up having to get used to it. Don't worry, though - she's a nice kid. She was like any other 11 year old - full of energy and extremely chatty, though she did surprise me with how blunt she could be sometimes. :) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5037 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 50 of 52 04 June 2011 at 3:55am | IP Logged |
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Extremely amusing indeed :)
My experience with Chinese people is limited to two families with whom I am friends and good friends (which is extremely good, because they own my two favorite Chinese restaurants), but for a while I became a specialist in offending (and being offended by) the Japanese, when I was actively looking for language exchange partners. Strange things and completely unexpected reactions happened all the time, other friends would tell me about clues I might have missed, things they probably didn't take well, etc. until one day I realized something very simple that somehow many others and I managed to miss most of the time, as I see here. Just think about this: of course, it is possible that the complete stranger you met at random and annoys you so much is a dreadful idiot that disliked you at first sight and made a personal mission of getting on your nerves. But just how likely is that? And what if it's not a perfect stranger but a friend's friend who was introduced to you with probably the best of intentions (like finding a partner for you)? What are the chances that [s]he wants to annoy or offend you? One in a zillion? So I always try and take the effort to explain it when I consider something offensive, and if someone looks worried or about to jump or something I usually ask, 'do you usually offend people intendedly? Because I don't, so please tell me if you're upset'. Sometimes I even use that as a sort of disclaimer or ice-breaker. It works wonders 90% of the time, and when it doesn't, well, sometimes it's just as good to know who your self-declared enemies, or the over-sensitive ones might be. On a different cultural note -- I had a very interesting conversation with some Lithuanian acquaintance once, about whether having a drunken fight that resulted in some serious bruising and black eyes the next day was to be considered a very bad thing or just 'pretty menial nightly fun'. We agreed not to go out to drink together by night, just in case. Talk about cultural differences :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| vientito Senior Member Canada Joined 6149 days ago 212 posts - 281 votes | Message 51 of 52 12 June 2011 at 5:40am | IP Logged |
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One thing you could count on though
No matter how much your Chinese folks want to know about the salary you are making, they definitely would never ask you how you get on with your sex life ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6361 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 52 of 52 12 June 2011 at 7:22am | IP Logged |
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no major culture would
1 person has voted this message useful |
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