You know your Mandarin’s in trouble when the Auntie who sells fried mifen in your neighborhood hawker center asks you where you are from. Right after you try to order in Chinese.
Here! I’m from here!
What do you mean where I’m from?
Was my language so mangled? I was enunciating, darn it, enunciating!
On another note, may I please enter as Exhibit #98, Pet Peeve Supremo: White guys who show up at a table full of Chinese-looking Singaporeans and proceed to speak in Mandarin. Fine, I get it. You speak Chinese. Whoopee Doo. Now, if you had only not assumed, we would have gladly told you that aside from the one person who works in Beijing and speaks flawless Mandarin, there was a Peranakan Chinese (who speaks Malay), another an inept D7-grade RGS girl [C'est moi], and a table full of Chinese who speak English. As a first language. Like you, White Man.
You should have guessed as much when I tried (and failed) to understand your introduction. I still don’t know your name.
you back in town? and how come your email works no more?
Yes in town. Email on the fritz? I can’t access from here. Only gmail works.