Saturday 28 December 2013

Rude Service


Usually when I go into a store to buy something I like to look for it myself. I don't like to ask someone where it is because I feel that looking around is much easier. Maybe I'm strange, but that's just the way I feel.

The other night I went into a drug store to buy something and as I was looking around for it the clerk asked me -- in English -- if she could help me. (Since I live in Taiwan, it's unusual to have someone speak English; most people would speak Mandarin -- or nothing at all -- to me.) Her pronunciation wasn't great, but there was nothing really wrong with her English. Still, I find it much easier to deal with other people in Mandarin rather than English. One of the reasons for that is that I don't like the assumption that just because I am white -- and therefore not Taiwanese -- that I am unable to speak Mandarin. Another reason is that my Mandarin is usually much better than other people's English. Not always, but chances are that if you are working as a clerk in a store -- and not at a professional job like something in a hospital, large office, or English school -- then my Mandarin in better than your English. So I told her what I wanted in Mandarin.

Now here's where we get interesting.

The clerk calls out to the pharmacist what I want and he goes to get it. I tell him I want two and he brings back two bottles. As he does do he says what it is, which isn't unusual, but how he said it was. The way he said was in Mandarin but with an inflection void of intonation. (Chinese is a tonal language, but many people misunderstand what they means. They think there are tones in Chinese, but it isn't tones, it's intonation. The same sound can have an entirely different meaning depending on whether the voice rises or falls while saying it.) The clerk then started doing the same thing.

They were, essentially, making fun of me and my Chinese. And I told them just as much.

The clerk then tried to engage me in conversation -- in English -- but I basically ignored her. I was quite insulted and upset. Finally I told her -- in Mandarin -- to just give me what I wanted.

This kind of behaviour is, quite honestly, very common. This happens to me quite often, but usually the people who do it are younger, people like children and teenagers. It most often happens in class when my students speak Chinese and I ask them to speak in English. They then repeat what they said but in a flat voice, as if they think that Mandarin spoken without intonation automatically makes it English.

That is quite annoying -- and I let my students know it isn't funny or appreciated -- but it is understandable when one considers the age and maturity of the people doing it. But to have adults do it is another thing entirely. And not just adults, but adults who work in the service industry. And not just that, but one of them -- the one who started it even -- is a pharmacist, a person who I would assume to be educated and at least semi-intelligent. Maybe I am wrong with that assumption, though.

If I can, I will be avoiding that particular drug store in the future. If they're going to treat me like that, I am not going to give them my business. I'll take my money somewhere else. I don't appreciate their attempts at humour.