This is america...

[protege]

He got into it through his school district. He teaches English...and since he always wanted to see the Great Wall, he volunteered for it. The first year, he was in western China. Last summer, he was stationed near Beijing.

One reason for the English teaching...Quite a few foreign companies have set up shop in China, since they're becoming the largest consumer market. China is slowly moving from a Communist economy into a capitalist one.

[Barefootgirl]

Quite a few foreign companies have set up shop in China, since they're becoming the largest consumer market.

Indeed they have. Mine is one of them, and to be frank, we're making a KILLING out there.

[DesignFox]

Ha! Thanks Seanette...you are right- I meant to say I couldn't care less!

[Seanette]

Ha! Thanks Seanette...you are right- I meant to say I couldn't care less!

Just one of those irrational peeves I have.

[Ryu]

theres A LOT of issues, legal and ethical, with american companies in china
i wont get into it as this isnt the place but its not nearly as good for china as its made out to me, nor is it as good for america as its made out to be

[Der Cute]

When I was living in AK, i had a neighbor who was VEDDY VEDDY Chinese.

One day he came into the C store I was working at and said "mabo lihs"

I tilted my head and asked again, "what?"

He kept saying "Mabo Lihs" until he pulled out a pack of ciggys. Ah-ha!!!

I got him the cigs, and then took him aside, and we practiced pronouncing Mah-bo-ro Light-s.

He came in the next day and pointed to me, and said, "You teecha me English-e".
That was over 5 years ago.

Since then, we have had a tradition of eating out on weekends, having burgers and fries, and/or chinese food, and practicing words, pronunciation and spelling.

He's now at a 3rd grade English level, his grammar is pretty good (based on old Hong Kong books from the 1950's - UK English) and his vocabulary is pretty good.
I'm proud of him, and he's pretty proud of me.

He's taught me some Chinese words, and I've taught him more than just English...I worked on American Culture too. Since he's from the Far East, and an older generation, he needed some explanation for the way we live here in America.

Man, I miss him. His woman cooked some killer chinese food.....mmmmm. Stuff you dont get in the Take outs.

Cutenoob

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

I don't have a problem with foreign people, I just hate when american companies outsource their technical/customer support to other countries that hire people that do not speak enough english to understand my problem.

Case in point:

I called Greendot (prepaid MasterCard company) because my wife's direct deposit failed to post for the second week in a row.

The back story to that is pretty simple. We moved and forgot to updage Greendot with our new address (when doing 30+ change of address forms both paper and online you're bound to miss one). They sent some junk mail announcing some new service that they offered and it bounced back. They see an invalid address and they panic and put a hold on the account causing my wife's first check to not get deposited.

Now I'm calling to find out why the second one didn't post and we found out that the payroll company wouldn't do another direct deposit to that account untill they get a Release Letter stating that the hold on the account is lifted.

Simple you'd say? Standard procedure you'd say? Normally I'd agree but such wasn't the case.

The woman on the other end left me with this little gem

W - Indian woman
Me - 'Allo

Me - I need you to send a release letter to my payroll company so I can get the direct deposit started again.
W - <thickly accented>Well why don't you just re-enroll for the direct deposit?
Me - Because they won't send anything to the account unless they get a release letter.
W - I know that, why don't you re-enroll?
Me - Because they won't send anything to that account ever again unless they get a Release Letter. They won't let us re-enroll

repeat this 6 more times until:

W - Well why don't you re-enroll with direct deposit so you...
Me - Madam, just how stupid do you think I am? I ALREADY checked into the posibility of re-enrolling! They will not send anything to the account on the existing Direct Deposit without the Release Letter, nor will they send anything to that account with a new Direct deposit. THEY WILL NOT SEND ANYTHING TO THAT ACCOUNT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES WITHOUT THAT GODDAMN LETTER!
W - Well we don't do that kind of letter...we suggest that you re-enroll...
Me - [insert sound of phone getting slammed into the cradle with extreme force]

We got a local bank that very day and are only keeping the greendot card as a way to protect us from credit card fraud. We put only enough money on the card to make the purchases we need to do online and keep only a few bucks on it the rest of the time. If anyone steals the number they'll be lucky to be able to buy a slurpee at 7-11.

Alex

[ForestDragon]

M: Another satisfied customer.

My father, who before he retired, worked for our local welfare office, was fond of using that phrase whenever one of his clients stormed out/slammed down the phone/otherwise acted like an idiot while leaving. Got a lot of snickers around the office.

I've had several epithets directed my way simply because I have a German-sounding last name. Most were, "dumb Nazi" and things like that.

Problem is, my name is a *Norwegian* one. If you're going to "insult" me like that, at least try to get it straight At least when I correct the idiots, it throws them for a loop...since there don't seem to be many negative Norwegian stereotypes

Ummmm....stoopid Viking? I kid, I kid. Better be nice to this guy or he'll ravish the fields and pillage the women...

[Lace Neil Singer]

I sometimes have trouble understanding accents... however, where I work now I've never had anyone throw a hissy fit if I ask them to repeat themselves. At the pizza place, I once had this Irish guy swear at me down the phone cuz I couldn't for the life of me understand a word he said. It would have been easier had he been standing in front of me cuz I'd have been able to watch his mouth. But down the phone it was impossible. Before he had a heart attack, I handed him over to my manager. A few minutes later, she put the phone down. He'd sworn at her too, cuz she couldn't understand him either. Strange to say, his pizza order was unintelligable... but his cussing wasn't!

[Barefootgirl]

I'm OK with accents, but once I ran into a completely impenetrable one, twice in one day. I was going to my best friend's wedding in Northern Ireland, we'd flown into Belfast and were driving over to the hotel in Antrim where we were all staying. I was starving, so we stopped in a KFC near the city.

I could not understand a WORD the guy behind the counter said to me. He wasn't from Belfast, but obviously somewhere out in the country - B'fast accents are not impenetrable if you're used to them, and I am. The poor fellow must have thought I'd just come down in the last shower of rain. He repeated himself about five times and eventually DH twigged what he was saying and said "He's asking if you want extra wings with that..." I was really embarrassed.

Midway between Belfast and Galgorm is Ballymena, a place which even my NI friends make jokes about on grounds of accent. DH spotted a barber's and decided he wanted a haircut, so we went in, and they sat him in a chair, whipped a towel round him and started snipping and chatting. I then realised where the KFC server was from. DH was quite happily chatting with the barber, but i couldn't understand one word in two the chap was saying.

Maybe that's where your pizza guy was from

[MadMike]

I had a customer come in and ask for information on building a deck. Only problem was, he had some kind of heavy accent that made him sound like he wanted to build a "dick." I knew what he meant, but it was all I could do not to crack up right in front of the poor guy.

I was good, though. I waited until he was gone to lose it.

[protege]

Ummmm....stoopid Viking? I kid, I kid. Better be nice to this guy or he'll ravish the fields and pillage the women...

LOL! To me, the word "Viking" brings images of burning and looting marauders...not quite the image that racists and bigots want

[Lace Neil Singer]

Midway between Belfast and Galgorm is Ballymena, a place which even my NI friends make jokes about on grounds of accent. DH spotted a barber's and decided he wanted a haircut, so we went in, and they sat him in a chair, whipped a towel round him and started snipping and chatting. I then realised where the KFC server was from. DH was quite happily chatting with the barber, but i couldn't understand one word in two the chap was saying.

Maybe that's where your pizza guy was from

Possibly. Funny, I wasn't scared at being sworn at, more amused.