I think you had a right to get mad, because I get very annoyed when random people start trying to use the few fortune cookie phrases on me. Show me a little g.d. respect and understand that I speak english just fine. Some of you fellas are losing the analogy. Ni hao ma to someone who is asian looking is not the same as hello. You are trying to greet someone on their terms. It's like a white dude seeing a black dude and saying "sup dawg", when the black guy is from Lagos, Nigeria. They won't get it, so don't automatically assume what that person is. It's also very condescending when your life starts from the period of socialization that these little tidbits of annoyance's added up. All this is also contingent on the intent of the person saying ni hao.
yea welcome to the club buddy. i've gotten "ni ho ma, konichiwa, hittee" (sp), ect.... It really comes with the terrority when your amongst less intelligent life-forms... no biggie.
I honestly wish it wasn't as big a deal, but it's hard to shake the feeling that you're being talked down to when someone addresses you in a language other than English simply because of the color of your skin. For me that's the hardest part to stomach. If you want to be polite, and we're living in a country whose main language is English, why not start off with "hello"? I don't understand the need to immediately identify the nationality of the person you're addressing.
I know how you feel man. It's best to just put it behind you... anyways, I'm permanently re-locating to NY in oct...we should have some rockets viewing partay's
my wife doesn't even let me out to watch the payoffs theres a lot of us up here though. I htink across110thstreet does regular meetups at bars.
On the interviews with Yao and Dream after their workout I heard some reporters, non-Asian, thanking Yao and saying goodbye in Mandarin and Yao responding to them in Mandarin. According to this thread though Yao should've gone, "F(ck you man!" and punched them out.
who knows if he actually feels like doing that though if he actually did that, there would be 50 threads in GARM about Yao getting Dream's attitude. He takes a lot of pride in his English, I think I heard before that he refuses to do English interviews if they use subtitles for when he speaks.
Actually, the correct analogy would be a white person in China being greeted with the english word "hello". According to the hotballa doctrine, that would be face-punch worthy, and they should only be spoken to in a Chinese language since they are in China. If you said hola to a person with a latin appearance, I would expect either hola or hello in response, not to be cursed at. There was no issue with hotballa understanding the words or "getting it" like your example guy from Nigeria.
1) China is a homogenous society non natives really stand out, America and especially a metropolis like NYC isn't. 2) Is it that hard to comprehend that immigrants trying to assimilate would not want people to remind them that they will always be foreigners in their eyes? 3) Do white people in America have peopel coming up to them everyday trying out different greetings from various European countries? 4) The point is not wther I understood him or not, it's that he has ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA whether I did or didn't. He talks to me like that assuming my native language is Chinese. here's a clue for you, NOONE likes to be assumed anything even if the assumption is correct or not. I believe the phrase is "you don't know me". 5) How do you not see that assuming someone doesn't speak English in AMERICA just because they're not white is offensive and racially motivated?
I hope hotballas restaurant survived the rona. If not, hes definitely on edge somewhere in the world.
Such as? I also miss hotballa. Not many people have the stamina to run a chinese food laundromat. I mean, that's tough.
He was having temper issues that were ruining his marriage. At one point his wife was scared of him. His sex life with his wife was terrible as well. He also started lashing out at women. I think he needed counseling and possibly medication. If I remember right he told me he was resistant to either but that was years ago so I hope it has improved with professional help.
