Posts Tagged ‘email’

Today we’re trying something a little different. This email came through yesterday from a reader I highly respect and there were several additions I wanted to make, so I post them here in-line for all to enjoy.

If you are white and you make any effort at all in Korean, you will be treated as a hero.  Whenever I say Bang-Gap-Samida (pleased to meet you), the Koreans go crazy.

I’ve noticed this as well in my various dealings with Chinese folk.

If you make any effort to speak Mandarin (or a local dialect of the Chinese where you’re located), the natives go, um…ape. The more sordid and unmentioned aspect of this reaction – perhaps more important to note, especially for those who haven’t traveled to the PRC before – is that what it’s really saying is how Chinese people perceive foreigners and their intellectual capacities. A general Chinese rule-of-thumb – the urban legend, as it were — is that Chinese believe a white Westerner (not to mention a black person) can’t ever match a Chinese citizen’s brainpower and therefore couldn’t learn to speak Putonghua (Mandarin) even if their lives depended on it. The further out one fans out from Tier One burgs (egs. Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen), the more strongly would this sentiment be expressed.

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