Tuesday, September 23, 2008 5:52 PM
this is why i hate tele-marketers on the phone.you cant blame me,my chinese skills havent been fluent even throughout high school years. although i can still understand basic chinese, i doubt i even remember how to write some of them. especially since speaking in chinese isnt my forte at all, i've not spoken it in ages. one, two years?? maybe.
you can imagine the situation at hand when i received a phone call, a chinese one, with a chinese tele-markter on the other side who constantly persists the questions, hello, ni hao (how are you?). . . you have got to be kidding me. next thing i knew, i rushed into my room where mum was inside doing her daily breathing exercises, holding the phone outstretched in my left hand, frantically trying to pass the phone on.
-_-'' she didnt take it at all.
'what am i supposed to say? she keeps saying hi, ni hao and this already is my second greeting. '
'just tell her you dont speak chinese.' mum shrugged me off.
'but then, i am chinese, my accent might give away'
(there was a long pause on the line)
'then say that you dont understand what she's trying to say, sorry and quickly put down the phone.'
'why cant you answer the phone call then?'
'cant you see im busy, besides, its fast, you'll do fine.'
(i think we must have talked between ourselves for so long she thought i had given it to someone else to receive the call)
i picked up the phone again.
'hello?'
'hi, ni hao (how are you?)
. . .okay we've been there, done that. can we change the subject other than ni hao? i understand that.
'hi, im sorry but i dont understand chinese'
'oh, you dont understand zhong wen (chinese)?
'no, wo bu dong (i dont understand)'
SHIT.
.
.
.
.
sensing my mistake, i slamed the phone down. oh god, the embarrassment to be a chinese.
immediately after that, mum started to choke and broke down into laughter. (apparently, she was breathing in when i my slip happened.)
'why did you say that!' ha ha, you must have left her wondering why you said chinese when you said you didnt understand the language at all. ha ha'
concidentally, through the walls to the adjacent room, charmaine started to break down as well.
i was made the joke of the day.
and no one seemed to forget that incident. . .
red...
stop laughing at me!!!(pulls the blanket over my head)
