The language barrier is a big source of frustration for many foreigners. All it takes is some patience and empathy

By Kathleen Lau

As I write this, I'm sitting in a café in New York City. I was a college student here, forsaking my native Cambridge, Massachusetts for the big city. It was and still is an impressive urban sprawl, alive with diversity and variety from hundreds of years of immigration. I believe there is a citizen from every country on the globe here. And while it may not be "melting" so well at times, it is definitely a pot of many colours.

It is always a pleasure to visit. This time, a friend from Singapore was visiting too. Her first language was English, so there was no problem with getting around. Singaporean English (or "Singlish") does have its particular brand of pronunciation very distinct from American English.

This posed a little bit of a problem at dinner that evening as we chose a Ukrainian restaurant. I gathered that our server was from the Ukraine from his accent. Between his grasp of English and my friend's Singaporean accent, I still needed to translate.

What struck me about the process was how naturally it went. Neither the server nor my friend became frustrated; both took this hiccup in stride. If I were not there, I still don't think my friend would have been aggravated. For all the years I lived in New York - and it is a city of immigrants and accents - I don't ever recall anyone getting angry over someone's inability to understand his accented English.

If anything, it's the reverse. I've seen New Yorkers get annoyed at the accent of immigrants. Once, while still living here, a friend came to visit from France. It was her first trip to the States and her first day in the country. We were in a fairly empty subway car coming from the airport when a woman got on. She was obviously already agitated. She looked at my friend and asked in a tense voice, "is this train going Grand Central?" to which my friend replied, "I'm sorry. I don't speak English."

This stranger then glared at my friend and in a booming voice, said, "Well, LEARN" and stomped off.

The "English first" mentality

Now this article is not about New York, so what's the reference to China? Well, in China, it seems the foreigners - us - have assumed the role of this American woman, and the locals have assumed the role of the immigrants.

How many times have we gone into a taxi, said our destination in heavily accented Chinese, only to have the taxi driver not understand. We become agitated, convinced that the taxi driver is either pretending ("he really knows") or is simply dumb ("oh come on, what does it sound like to you").

We become irritated, angry even, and sometimes telling the driver that he should, well, learn English. What we fail to understand is that many taxi drivers, particularly the older ones, did not grow up speaking Mandarin. They can barely navigate CCTV Mandarin, much less that of foreigners with accents from a dozen countries. They are asked to understand Indian-accented Chinese, English-accented Chinese and all the varieties in between.

I remember living in Paris for a brief few months in 1993. The English level of the Parisians in the service sector then was not unlike those of the Chinese in Shanghai today. There were plenty of American tourists in Paris who complained loudly, threw their dollars around and were called "ugly Americans". Those who wanted more of a connection with the locals learned to say coffee with milk in French (café crème), and were apologetic when our French did not progress enough for us to say, "Are you still serving lunch?"

Nowhere did I run across a French person who was apologetic for not speaking English. They may have wished they could speak it better, but no one asked for forgiveness.

As new immigrants in America, my parents spoke heavily accented English. As a result they were treated by some people - the cashier at the supermarket, the token clerk in the subway, even some co-workers - like idiots. Many confused their lack of language ability with a lack of intelligence.

Yet in China, many foreigners who don't speak Chinese wear their inability like a badge of honour. We are the ones who become angry at the Chinese's inability to understand us. Our English, or whatever our native language, is treated with celebrity status as if it takes a special intelligence. We are deferred to and given special treatment.

Admit it: Our frustration is not only with taxi drivers. It is also with our staff and those we deal with on a daily basis, even our translators. Just because someone speaks good English, we think it means automatically that they understand everything Western. If they understand the word "suspicion" then they must understand the word "accountability". We become impatient and judgmental of their lack of understanding, suspecting them of some malicious intent instead of simply having different cultural perspectives.

Unlike foreigners in America or Europe, foreigners in Shanghai are not immigrants. We have no plans to spend the rest of our lives here, to get Chinese citizenship or to integrate into Chinese society. We are fortunate to be given special status, and we can return the favour by being the modern visitors we represent ourselves to be. We are the ones with the responsibility to integrate, to communicate from the local perspective, and not be an ugly foreigner demanding accommodation.

©copyright 2007 by Kathleen Lau. No part of this may be reprinted - in any language or format: printed, electronic or otherwise - without express written permission from author.