If You thought Miss South Carolina was Bad....

[astanley]

On the other hand, you can really blow a foreigner's mind if you speak their language.

I discovered a little girl in my daughter's pre-school class is Polish. She doesn't speak English yet, as they only moved here a few months ago. I still speak a (VERY) little Polish, learned when my father took us on a sabbatical to Poland. I said hello to her in Polish -- you should have seen her eyes light up. Later that week, I saw her in the parking lot with her mom. I said "Good morning Julia, how are you?" in Polish and her mom's eyes bugged out in amazement. Too bad that pretty much taps out what I remember, other than a few useless phrases. Still -- it was fun to see her mom's reaction.

Exactly! Talking about "kastuobushi" and asking the waiter for another beer in pretty good Japanese had three of my hosts eating out of my hand. They are blown away when a Westerner does more than say "Domo arrigato!" and "Ohi o!" and "Konnichiwa!" In some ways, it's cool "not to be that American" that everyone expects you to be.

Cheers,

-Andrew

 

[Lawreston]

They are blown away when a Westerner does more than say - - - - - - -

"blown away." That happened in Spain, but not to or about me. A lady friend of mine was language major -- Spanish and French -- at Maine's Colby College. She spent her Junior year in Spain. The gorgeous lady with a New England tan was walking to her apartment one night. Following behind her was a native son who seemed to consider himself a Don Juan; and he kept up a series of mumbled leading comments, naturally in perfect Spanish. The lady kept silent during the monologues until, finally, she turned and met him face to face. Without losing a beat she royally coarsed him out, of course in perfect Spanish.

She later said that she wished she'd been able to record the expression on his face, and the pause before he uttered -- in broken English -- "Take a walk on the wild side, lady." He then turned around and walked away.

HR