It's worse for males. When a large group of guys and girls talk in a language I am not too familiar with, they tend to make jokes about me not being able to understand completely and stuff. When a bunch of girls look my way and start laughing, that feeling kills me.
ya....lol it kinda feel degrading when ppl say that...it's annoying, yet it motivates me to learn more chinese =)...but one of the sayings... "it's so funny/cute you can't pronounce things correctly" if a girl said that to a guy, it's totally acceptable, assuming you two are dating
What you said touched me deeply, as corny as that may sound. All the emotions and those example phrases you gave is what I go through as well. I hate how people diminish and make fun of me when I do make the effort to learn, unlike most ABC/BBC/CBC today, and like you, I also try to "suck it up", when in reality, it does hurt'; it is not encouraging at all. Like you, most of my friends are "fobs", not local born, and mostly international students that I meet at school and around. I can get away by looking like a fob because of my dress and because I can read/write comprehend Chinese (So, for example, if I am sitting in a cafe just reading Chinese magazine), but once I open my mouth, of course, it's so obvious that I am local born. And then people make fun of me . . . What I hate more is that some of them have the most shittiest English (shitty to the point where I can't believe they are passing University).... But I don't go around making fun of them and pointing out their flaws. In fact, I make the effort to help them out with their English, whether its by translating English>Chinese or even editing papers for them. I also find is that most fobs are quite nice, and that they are actually "amazed" that you can actually communicate with them, and even "more amazed" when you show a passion and eagerness to learn a language in a country where English is the official language, . I find that I am mostly made fun of by 0.5/half CBC/ABC/BBC, people who immigrated here and think they're the shit because they can "speak" both Chinese and English. They will point out this and that is incorrect, when they don't realize given the circumstances, you're raised in a country and culture where Chinese is not at dominance. Even if you were to speak Chinese all the time with your parents, you wouldn't have the same exposure to say, someone living in Hong Kong. I want to thank you for bringing out this topic! I was gonna make a topic like this, but you've nailed it down right on the spot XD. Keep it up, work hard la, and you will succeed and one day all those people who used to make fun of you, they will stop and realize that you've accomplished something greater than what they can. I mean, you will master a language in it's anti-environment... err...kinda like swimming upstream. Lots of people are belittling you and looking down on you because they don't want to accept the fact that it's possible and there's a MINOR existence of CBC/ABC/BBC who can actually communicate Chinese and have the passion to learn it and are against the mainstream white culture.
Fresh off the boat It used to refer to immigrants coming in the 70s and 80s who literally came to North America by boats. Right now it just means anyone who is not local born and who still has tendencies towards their own culture from wherever they came from. So this includes: Immigrants, international students, etc.
awww, glad to know we're not the only ones like that HA HA HA fresh of the boat yeah i've been noticing a lot of my old threads are popping back
