Friday, October 21, 2005

Pride and Prejudice

I can be such an elitist.

Earlier I'd gone for this Psychology social but was feeling quite tired so ended up hanging around a small group of Asians somehow. With people from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan speaking in their weird (to me) accents, I just wasn't very comfortable somehow.

It's like I actually look down on them for their 'poor speech'. But later I thought about it awhile and decided, who am I to judge, when the locals probably think the same about my Singaporean accent?

As though to illustrate this point, when I got back home (nearly ten) I saw a couple of housemates having dinner. "Late dinner, huh?" I asked, pointing at one of their dishes. The owner of that dish looked quite offended and replied, "Yeah, fish and cheese fries, why?"

I was rather confused for awhile (had I made a cultural boo-boo by gesturing at his food or something?) when another housemate helped clarify the issue - I'd said late dinner, not lame dinner. The offended party relaxed almost immediately.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

well people tell me that if you adopt the local accent, locals find it easier to understand you, don't ask me why. but you're not really having serious problems so i guess it isn't important.

just be sure not to make the same mistake in the presence of beefy strangers who would like nothing better than a punch-up. haha.

lili~* said...

oh no!!! tt sounds terrible!!! tsk. poor u. haha never mind just pick up their accent lor. lucky u got off unscathed. hee.