Quote Originally Posted by priapus1966 View Post
First. Big thumbs up to the Sampler for an excellent story. Disappointed yes, Frustrated yes, but still, not a bad deal.

Second. I would take issue a bit with Goldfishman about Chinese girls and language: you are right that if you know some language your mileage can improve quite markedly. Until 3 months ago I had lived overseas for more than 25 years, East Asia, Europe, and North America. You cannot put all Chinese girls in the same basket, Northerners tend to be a bit more outgoing, Southerners a tad quieter but they can even have trouble understanding each other, let alone the big noses like me! I spent a lot of time in Japan, Korea, and various parts of China and it pays big time for a punter to learn a few words in whatever is the local language/dialect. It breaks the ice, mistakes don't matter because they can cause a laugh - and a laughing gal is always more fun.

There is one exception: Shanghai; I'm fairly sure that even the other quite close by Chinese have trouble understanding that mob. And when you start to go west in China there is a myriad of different languages.

Japanese and Koreans are scared of making errors, I put that down to their education systems which tend to penalize error rather than reward success. But a bow, and meticulous good manners, with a word or two in greeting melts them quickly enough. Don't know much about Thais so will say nothing.

Finally as a refugee from Sydney punting 1995 style, I am learning a lot from you guys on this site, things have changed a lot, ahelluva lot, so thanks for all the tips and guidance
Yes the Chinese have many many different dialects and even intonations of Mando in different parts of the country. However, that's why there's Mandarin. The language itself is called "pu tong hua", meaning "common language", the language that is understood by all Chinese no matter where they are from.

I stand by my comment about them being lazy and not as willing to take up English as other nationalities. This is exactly my experience with them in Australia, and it's all because of how big the Chinese diaspora in Sydney has become. A Chinese immigrant with zero English proficiency could very easily live his/her life here without needing to be able to speak any English. They can live in any of the heavily Chinese populated areas like Campsie, Wolli Creek, Chinatown and get everything they need simply by speaking Chinese.

On the other hand, Thai, Korean, Japanese immigrants are forced to learn at least some English because their diaspora are not as big as the Chinese here. At some point they would have to deal with people that don't speak their own languages, that's where they need English.