Comments on: Foreigner Shock Meltdown

By: Scott Sommers

Scott Sommers — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 00:16:26 +0000

TJ, I’m, not sure where you taught, but it’s possible that they spoke absolutely no English. In fact, it’s a very common experience in Taipei to have teenage kids refuse to speak in Mandarin while you address them in the language and instead struggle through in terrible English.

By: TJ

TJ — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 00:35:17 +0000

When I was a high school exchange student in Taiwan I never experienced any shock meltdown. I remember the post office people and the people behind the counter in convenience stores generally spoke regular Chinese to me, and if I didn’t understand, they’d say it louder, never slower.

By: Smee

Smee — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 04:08:40 +0000

Just wanted to add that your number 2 happens all the time and still gets under my skin. It really kills me when I pay for something the counter and the employee gives the change to my Korean accompaniment.

By: Smee

Smee — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 03:43:10 +0000

I’m not sure it’s purely a linguistic thing, and one solved if all Koreans learned English and if all foreigners learned Korean. (And there are plenty of problems with trying to get all foreigners here to speak Korean, but that’s a whole ‘nother issue).

It’s also worth exploring the ways foreigners are presented in the media and in schools. I think the idea that foreigners are dangerous, or diseased, or sex-crazed, causes some encounters to be awkward, snicker-filled conversations, in which the laughter and pidgin isn’t entirely from embarassment. Moreover, foreign teachers’ classes are often presented as the entertainment portion of the school program (for better or worse), so that the limited exposure many people do have with native speakers is reduced to games, catcalls, and meaningless English.

In my comment here I’m touching on something a little different than the complete meltdown we see in stores. I have hardly ever encountered it in rural Korea. I have, though, faced tons of catcalls, crude pidgins, and other bizarre behavior that seems to possess some people in the presence of a white person. I think the meltdown and the hysteria are related.

By: Scott Sommers

Scott Sommers — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 17:17:22 +0000

I can assure you this sort of thing happens with great frequency in both Taiwan and Japan. In fact, the assumption that any NALI is an English teacher is ubiquitous. To paraphrase a newspaper article long lost in my memory, you could jump of your Mercedes wearing your Armani suit swinging real estate deals on your cell phone and you’ll still have someone ask you if you’re free to teach their kids.

I too have lived in Korea, although for only a short time. And while I like living in Taiwan a lot more, don’t be under any illusions that the Taiwanese are an open ‘foreigner-friendly’ society.

By: Muninn on “Foreigner Shock Meltdown” in parts of East Asia « Intercultural Communication

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 10:51:27 +0000

[…] by thuicc on November 22, 2007 (Hmmm… long title…) Muninn has a great post discussing what happens in places like Japan and Korea when a stranger (someone clearly not native […]

By: Muninn

Muninn — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 23:43:57 +0000

Thanks Derek. Ya, as Antti suggests above, preempting GSM appears to be quite effective. I’m glad your experience has been similar to my own on the urban vs. rural front.

By: Derek

Derek — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 19:29:43 +0000

This is an interesting article, Mitch. When I was still half-way through reading it, I was trying to figure out why it happened fairly frequently when I was a missionary in in Tokyo and Yokohama, and also some when I was a student in Kyoto, but it’s never happened when we go to rural Imazu in Shiga-ken every year to visit my wife’s family. Of course you answered the question for me, and I think you are correct on your rural vs. urban hypothesis.

Also as my Japanese has gotten better, I almost always preclude any conversation with a stranger with a Japanese phrase, such as お願いします at a check-out, or すみませんが if I’m asking someone for directions. As long as I initiate the conversation in Japanese, I almost never experience GSM even though I am the epitome of a NALI (192 cm tall, big nose, blue eyes, etc.).

By: Muninn

Muninn — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 15:51:36 +0000

Antti, interesting. Maybe as you suggest, your use of preemptive Korean utterances break the surface tension before the transaction begins and the meltdown occurs.

I should have probably added that, even in Seoul, this kind of thing only seems to happen say, 1 on 15-20 encounters.

By: Antti Leppänen

Antti Leppänen — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 12:36:34 +0000

Now all this leads me once again to wonder why I – a very white male person – have been largely spared from this phenomenon while being in contact with Koreans, approaching them speaking Korean. Is it an Anglo thing? Of course there is mostly the normal surprised laughter, but that is over as soon as it starts, and then it’s the normal business. Perhaps there are some small gestures and utterances (such as 저기… 저…) that inform the other party that this foreigner’s gonna speak Korean and no meltdown occurs.

And what has Burgeson himself done during all those years that the old grocery store couple hasn’t spoken to him? Kept silent at the cashier? What has he learned Korean for?

By: Durf

Durf — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 06:45:59 +0000

I’ve had far more GSM experiences in rural areas; almost none at all in Tokyo. This is whether I’m with my (Japanese) wife or alone. People seem quite content to talk directly to me, and have no difficulty whatsoever figuring out that the words coming out of my mouth are, yes, in their own language. I even had a doctor begin talking away to me, stop himself, wonder aloud whether I spoke Japanese, and tell me “of course you do; you’ve got the face of someone who can.” So that was odd.

This is my first visit to your site; added it to my subscriptions list.

By: Sayaka

Sayaka — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 19:57:00 +0000

I will never experience the GSM or OSM, unfortunately. But I remember some American friends I had in Taiwan complained that the Taiwanese spoke to them in English although they were fluent in Chinese. The same people also complained when people didn’t understand their English when they travelled to Japan or Southeast Asia.

By: Muninn

Muninn — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 18:08:19 +0000

Very interesting! Actually, I have had that experience myself on two occasions. I was asked by a Korean-Japanese woman I met if I was Japanese. She asked it in a complete straight face, early in our conversation, almost by way of introductory questions.

Second time was in a small town in Shanxi province, I was asked by someone the same question you were asked!

By: Chas Hayford

Chas Hayford — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 18:02:25 +0000

Still another type of response. In 1979, when few Chinese had seen many Americans, I had the chance to strike up a conversation in my pretty good (Taiwan trained) Mandarin with a middle school teacher. After about twenty minutes he paused, looked very puzzled, then asked me “what province are you from?” (ni shi naisheng ren?).

That is, he assumed that anyone who spoke Chinese, even with an accent, must be some sort of Chinese.

By: Denske

Denske — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 13:49:30 +0000

I think the accent is the trigger in the most of the time (although my race sends up red flags). When I’m with a white friend who grew up in Japan and speaks unaccented Japanese (and has more or less Japanese body language), he never seems to have problems with people who are still nervous talking to me.
And there’s also the personality of the foreigner. Some people unfortunately seem to invite this treatment through personality traits that aren’t generally a problem in the native language.