When I tell the taxi drivers here the name of the street I want to go to (pronounced from memory because the names are too complicated to understand), they don’t always know how to get there. That’s why I always have the name of a popular landmark in close proximity memorized, and when I mention this, it usually gets me where I want to go. Sometimes I get a part-time cabbie though, who doesn’t even know where this landmark is. That’s when they ask me how to get there, or what else is around, or if it’s close to such-and-such-a-place adjacent to such-and-such-a-street. Somehow, they assume that I’m a local.
Which is odd, because I know I have an English accent when I speak Chinese, so I assume most people can tell I’m not from around here. When I was here five years ago, most people said they knew I wasn’t from Hong Kong before I even opened my mouth. Something about the way I looked or dressed or acted.
Guess I’m fooling someone now.
Your HK trip reminds me of mine to mainland, in 2006 in every single aspect.
I remember when I took a cab, the driver tried to chitchat with me. The first question he asked me was “What’s your nationality?” Which startled me. “Chinese of course!” I replied. He said “Oh sorry, I thought you were Japanese.”
I guess having lived in the States for almost 20 years, I’ve lost my local North-Eastern accent. But I still speak perfect Mandarin. I asked him why he thought I wasn’t Chinese. He said I just didn’t look or sound one like. I felt a bit insulted, hurt even.
It can definitely be hard to accept when we don’t fit in with the roots of our culture. Sometimes it feels like instead of being both Chinese and American/Canadian, we’re neither.
It’s the look in the eyes, the hairstyle, the co-ordination of clothes, the body language, the things you carry and the way you carry them. They all add up. Just because the driver asked you for direction doesn’t necessarily mean he thought you were a local, maybe he just thought you were a foreigner who knew your way around.
I guess being a foreigner who knows his way around is still better than being a foreigner who knows nothing!
It is. Take it from a foreigner who speaks what little Chinese she knows with a reportedly very natural accent. Even if I pronounce it dead-on properly, they don’t understand me, because they assume I’ll be speaking English! When they listen again, they usually get it. It’s just what they expect — like always giving me the fork at the dinner table and I have to ask for chopsticks.
I can totally imagine how the automatic assumption that you need a fork can be very insulting.