Language Barrier

Although Hong Kong is officially a bilingual city (English and Cantonese), English is still a challenge to some locals. To a visitor the language barrier would not be much of a hindrance. Bargaining doesn't really require complex phrases and ordering food can be done with pointing. However, for more complicated issues that are involved with living here, language becomes an issue. The other day the shower head broke in my flats bathroom and so I went down to the building manager's office to report it. The problem was the manager didn't know what I was talking about. At first she thought I had locked myself out of my room. It took a little effort to convince her I didn't need keys. Then she said something I didn't understand and kept pointing at the computer (Perhaps she thought I couldn't connect to the internet). Finally she got on the phone and called a resident tutor (our version of RA) and I talked to her. The RT's English was much better and then she conveyed the problem to the manager. When I returned to my flat later that day there was a new shower head installed.

The problem is everywhere has processes. It is not just China, it is back home too. I am frequently reminded of freshman year trying to learn how all the dinning halls work. Miami makes it convenient by making every dinning hall different. The difference is back home if you are confused about a process you can ask and if you do something wrong you are corrected in English. At the dinning halls here you tend to guess what you are suppose to do and then get yelled at in Cantonese. So far I got down that you order and pay for your food at the first counter. But then you are given a receipt. Everything on the receipt is written in Chinese except for a number. I understand that the number corresponds to an order. The tricky part is redeeming your food. Sometimes you get multiple receipts, that’s for a drink order or other side order. There are also different counters to get your food depending on the canteen and what they serve. Some times you turn in your receipt and then they give you your order and sometimes you have to wait until the food is ready and then you trade in your receipt for your food. The servers are very busy and I can understand how they might get frustrated with a foreigner trying to do the wrong thing, especially since they correct you in Cantonese or very bad English. There have been several times when I was at the wrong place to get my food and I don't think the server understood that I had no idea what was going on. I am eventually learning but it’s a very odd way to learn.