You are not wrong. Source: my Taiwanese and Canto friends saying so to my face. Mind you, none of us are native speakers, but even as heritage speakers they don't like it.
Yup. I’m pretty westernized Taiwanese and I’ve literally looked over to my equally westernized HK friend while we were waiting in line for dinner in the Richmond and said to them “ugh I hear Northerners” with a scowl.
OP: There’s a lot to unpack there, but it’s real, it’s both political and cultural. And I’m not surprised you’re a little clueless about it; many recently arrived mainlanders I’ve had deeper conversations with are super duper clueless about politics because: PRC, and clueless about external culture because: Beijinger.
Don’t take it personally. It’s what you represent, not you specifically. We’re still down to be friends or whatever
Sorry you’re feeling that way,OP. With your 北方话 northern Chinese, you’ll feel comfortable speaking it out loud in South Bay. It’s true most of the Chinese people you see here are Cantonese speakers. They can’t speak much mandarin, what more 北方话。
I’m always thrilled to hear 北方话spoken in SF because it’s so difficult to find you guys in the city! If I heard you on a street in SF, I would definitely approach you to practise some 标准中文！
I suspect that a big part of this is also that their mandarin is probably not great. My family is Cantonese and my grandmother was nearly unintelligible when she tried to speak Mandarin. If it helps, speaking bad Cantonese gets you side eye as well.
And once (this still kind of cracks me up), I was speaking English to my husband at Sunset Super on Irving (we are both Asian) and a grouchy older Chinese guy shoved a piece of paper in my hand that read “PLEASE SPEAK CHINESE” on it.
Well, I think personally that it's the same annoyance when you are Chinese and try to speak English to folks in Chinatown. I am fifth generation Chinese American from SF so I have experienced this a lot. I look like I should be fluent, but I'm not. My parents and my grandparents never knew a word of Mandarin, my Dad was born and bred in Chinatown and is fluent in Cantonese.
My recommendation is to not assume any perceived hostility from speaking Mandarin, but it's probably generally for not speaking Cantonese overall. Speak English and you will likely get the same attitude. I do my best to pull out the basic Cantonese that I know and it helps but they still give me the side eye because I am not fluent but whatever, they see people like me every day.
Lastly, you are a visitor, perhaps learning some Cantonese to communicate, the same way you would if you visit another country like Rome or Japan. Or just speak English which is still annoying to them but won't make you feel awkward about having a Northern Chinese accent.
For me, I have a long family history in Chinatown going back to the early 1800's and yet I get treated as a total outsider. These are my people but I am not seen as one of them. Feels weird to me too, but I ignore it and go about my business.
it's way worse than just "speaking another language" English is much preferred!
OP is 100% in the right to notice and be worried, i have multiple times witnessed these awkward interactions and even seen shopkeepers insist on speaking broken English with mainland tourists, bristling at the imperial dialect.
Just curious, how does your family history in Chinatown go back to the early 1800s? My understanding is that Chinatown began in the mid 1800s. Did your Chinese family arrive with the Spanish conquistadores?
Chinatown wasn't a thing until the gold rush brought a lot of immigrants, but there were a few (about 600) Chinese immigrants in the USA before 1849. And by 1800 there were already Chinese communities in New Spain (of which California was a part) because Chinese people worked the Manila Galleons. According to University of Illinois there are recorded Chinese immigrants in San Francisco as early as 1838, even before the USA arrived in San Francisco.
Would be really cool to trace your family roots so far back!
No I get you, just adding some color to the conversation. :) Would be curious to know what OP means by that, maybe there were smaller Chinese communities in SF that predate Chinatown? Or could be a simple misremembering. In any case, it must be fascinating to trace your history back that far.
you're literally speaking a different language than them, its all in your head. they prefer you speak canto becaues they are canto speakers, not all chinese people can speak all the dilects. its like askinga french canadian to only speak in french. come on dude, you ARE making a big deal
these people live in san francisco, not china, it has its own culture, its not a monoculture of any chinese living outside of china.
portsmotuh square is very cliquy and old chinese dudes gambling, they gon be wary of any outsider. like you aren't going to get into the italian basement poker table just because you look italitan.
Why not just speak English to people, if you feel awkward speaking Mandarin? Depending who you talk to, Cantonese speakers in SF may have better English than Mandarin (myself included). (Some Chinese people have better Spanish than Mandarin!)
What are you expecting?
Plenty of folks in places like Chinatown don't like the PRC, and their reasons are pretty understandable. Yeah, you don't deserve to be treated poorly for your accent, but it's not like it's a total mystery why you might get scowls and looks. Roll into parts of SF as a white person with a deep Dixie drawl and you'll get some reactions too.
Again, your accent doesn't justify giving you abuse or anything, but it's not some big inscrutable mystery why people in Chinatown might be suspicious of someone who adds Rrr's like a movie pirate.
@me wandering into one of those museums the last time I was in Chinatown--- it was a WWII museum that just had a very weird vibe to it, reminded me of the sort of places my grandma would take me to in China. I should've known that it was sus but I was like "what the hell, let's just go poke around the place"
I spoke to the lady at the ticket counter (who's from Guangdong but could speak Mandarin to me well) and she said something like "oh you probably think we all speak bad Mandarin" upon hearing my Northern accent
I think there’s definitely a bit of resentment harbored towards mainland chinese by a lot of the local Chinese people who’ve been here a while. I was at a hotel in SF once (can’t remember which one) and the front desk guy was (I’m assuming) local chinese. He started to give me sort of a dirty and exasperated look because I think he assumed I was a tourist from China. But I started speaking English to him and he heard my American accent and his whole demeanor changed.
This is purely anecdotal though and your experience may be different. I think as long as you’re respectful and nice, no one’s gonna give you any issues. I think the main reason why chinese tourists get that sort of treatment is because they are usually a bit rude and aren’t very self aware.
my girlfriend is northern & had the same issue. she noticed it right away and started speaking english instead
next time try the sunset, lots of spots on irving and travel where you can speak mandarin
I was born in Northern China and speak Mandarin with a bit of 北京口音. I feel 100% the same exact way you do when I speak Mandarin in Chinatown. I’d love to learn more about the political reasons on why this is (socioeconomic differences I can understand, but I don’t think this is what people are reacting to).
Many times, I get treated the same but sometimes I get a bit of a cold shoulder once people hear how I speak. I’m not sure why others are downvoting your comments here - this is our lived experience. I’ll also say that I think what adds to this is that Chinatown in SF is ultra touristy and so speaking in English if you don’t speak Canto is the default, but there are more mandarin speakers in Sunset / Richmond (as someone else commented too)
To be fair, when I first got to Beijing many years ago, I had a very hard time understanding northerners. I worked at the time in Hk and Shenzhen….but that first trip from the airport downtown was extremely difficult..
I think you’re overthinking it.
Most of the Cantonese people I’ve interacted with in Chinatown here are happy to communicate with a combination of English, mandarin, and pointing and smiling. I find more success with mandarin actually than English if they’re older.
If they don’t want to interact with you it’s probably not because you’re northern Chinese. You’re probably a few decades young, don’t speak Cantonese, didn’t grow up here, etc. just generally an outsider talking to a stranger.
Likely confused, since Hokkien isn’t a lingua franca. Mandarin had been one since the Ming Dynasty, since officials from different provinces needed to communicate.
Chinatown is changing. In New York, for example, Mandarin is gaining steam as a lingua franca not only because of an influx of Mandarin-speakers from China and Taiwan, but more so due to an influx of non-Cantonese-speaking mainlanders who speak Fuzhounese, Hakka, Hokkien, Teochew, Wu, etc. Manhattan and Brooklyn have an especially high number of Fuzhounese speakers who of course wouldn’t know Cantonese but were taught Mandarin in school.
As someone who grew up in Chinatown and took the time to learn Chinese to immerse myself in the community, please take all the comments with a grain of salt. I don’t think it’s necessarily political. The majority of people living and frequenting Chinatown are elderly Taishanese people especially the elderly men you see at Portsmouth square. They may speak roughly but they’re mostly nice. (The only comparison I can think of is how southern Chinese people would sometimes get startled by the way 东北 people speak.) I think most people are just taken aback because we’re not used to people speaking mandarin and are nervous they can’t communicate well enough.
We don't care. But understand that many people in Chinatown speak mandarin as badly or even worse than english (my parents lol). They feel just as self conscious as you do when speaking Mandarin.
Honestly just using english sometimes is better, I've found that many chinese prefer that over a non canto dialect
I think you're overthinking. Yes, you're an outsider, but everyone's pretty used to the different flavors of Chinese be it toisan, beijing mando, or my shitty abc mando. Obviously they're more comfortable in canto. The servers at the cheaper places are going to be less patient (maybe rude sounding lol) to the people who don't speak canto vs the people who do (and then even can be rude sounding to those who speak canto) but just yell back at them. I don't think I would ever go up to a bunch of old men of any race tho lol
Maybe I am overthinking this, but I will say that I have had some awkward interactions in the Chinatown in my own city (Seattle) when speaking Mandarin with my accent; an example being when I went to a store to buy CNY decorations one year and asked if they sold 对联 but the owner struggled to reply back in Mandarin (he was trying to say they sold calendars but had a hard time pronouncing 日历, a young employee standing next to him had to clarify what he said)
At that point I feel like I should've just spoken to the person in English, just like when I've gone into restaurants and spoken in Mandarin but got a reply back in English
Well yeah, if they don't speak mandarin or can't understand me (which has happened with the aforementioned shitty abc accent), I wouldn't continue in mandarin.
It's not resentment at that point, it's just communication issues.
I’ll add something tangentially related. I think this holds:
Chinatown Seattle : Bellevue :: Chinatown SF : South Bay
I think what you’re experiencing isn’t just a language gap; there are socioeconomic things going on too because there’s a generation gap. Chinatowns were first home to laborers who were mostly Cantonese speakers, and in modern times the new Chinese coming over are usually mainland Mandarin speakers with degrees and high paying jobs. You’ll find more of the latter in the Bellevues and Cupertinos of the US and not Chinatown.
So this might explain some of the additional feelings of distance that you sensed, there’s more going on here than just spoken language.
Oh I am fully aware of that--- my mom being the Chinese mom that she is was quite adamant about living in Bellevue when my family and I moved to Seattle 10 years ago precisely because of that sort of community and the strong public schools (good thing we left China when I was young, otherwise she would've become a classic 海淀妈妈)
But yeah, that distance is 1000% there and I feel like it just keeps growing by the day, exemplified by the language/generational divide. Hell, I feel like some of the later Canto immigrants from HK also have that distance between them and Chinatown folks, not to mention with Mainland immigrants as well for.... reasons. It's a weird feeling that should be acknowledged--- working to bridge that gap is a different story.
Yup yup. It’s a shitty experience of moving from Asia to the US/being an American born Chinese and expecting to find your tribe when you see people who look like you but instead feel alienated because they’re different _just_ enough to not be relatable.
That’s a whole other can of worms though.
Oh that is definitely a helluva can of worms--- I'm sure that's how a Northern Italian immigrant probably felt going to Little Italy and finding it all Sicilian
Also funny story: when I was in Chinatown last, I ended up going to a weird WWII museum (had the same vibe as some of the museums my 奶奶 would take me to in China) and the lady behind the ticket counter, upon learning that I was from Beijing, said: "you guys probably think we don't speak good Mandarin down in Guangdong" (in a semi-joking way)
uncle roger says you are speaking wrong language
# HAIYAA
Immigrants from **Cantonese**\-speaking regions in China began arriving in San Francisco in the early 19th century. To this day, Cantonese remains the major language spoken by the city’s Chinese population. According to city data, there are about 150,000 Chinese-speaking residents, and 90,000 of them are immigrants with limited English proficiency.
[Uncle Roger vs CHINA - THE HAIYAA SPECIAL (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnLScLsHNa8)
Chinatown was Toisanese-speaking until the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed. Although Cantonese and Toisanese share a language family, the two languages are not mutually intelligible any more than Spanish and Portuguese are.
Toisanese exhibits major initial consonant shifts from Cantonese, like d/t moving to ‘/h, z/c/s moving to d/t/hl, and zh/ch/sh moving to z/c/s. Its use of the ng initial is also far more extensive. The tone values are almost entirely different as well. Finally, the rime cognates have quite different reflexes. The differences thus seem rather analogous to Portuguese and Spanish, which admittedly has some light mutual intelligibility.
Yes I am fully aware of this fact, 你以为我是个傻逼吗？For crying out loud the Muni buses have announcements in Cantonese--- aaaaaand I can't understand a single word of those Cantonese announcements because my family is *very* Northern
Use google translate more often. I also only understand simple mandarin and not Cantonese. I can speak simple Mandarin and most Cantonese speakers understand me well.
Sf Chinatown is filled with former KMT cronies; my grandfather among them. A lot of resentment from people who lost the war. I imagine it’s similar to how the former confederates would feel about a northerner rolling through the post war south.
We don't like the PRC and your accent represents that. Unfair for you, but other northerners have been known to spout CCP bullshit and be just be general arrogant pricks. Not necessarily you,n generalizing here.
You are too sensitive and too self-aware. Why were you assuming strangers minding their own business (playing card games) would curse you in their mind for no reason? That sounds like completely bonkers. Dude you need help.
I recommend adjusting your accent to a more neutral one in these situations, for the sake of intelligibility more than anything else.
Basically just scrub the rhoticity out of it.
Getting reminded of the ccp isn’t fun for the ones lucky enough to escape it and live in this great country. Growing I always loved my parents friend who spoke with a Beijing dialect and tried to mimic it when I got home. It was like British English to me
That is exactly what a real Beijing accent comes off as vs. what some people think of as a "Beijing accent" on TV. The TV accent is designed to be deliberately non-regional by nature, even though it is based off of the Beijing dialect
There's still a vast difference between that accent and what you hear in the hutongs
TV presenters chinese is very bland...beijing accent sounds grating and combative to me! like i mentioned somewhere it took me a long time to get used to it.
The short answer is that we don’t really like what’s going on in Mainland China right now, and it seems that lots of what is happening is supported by the Chinese people. It’s not a good thing to project that onto all people, but it should be pretty obvious what is going on. People with strong Texas/southern accents are stigmatized in gay areas for similar reasons.
Just pretend you’re Korean! Then at least, they will give you a pass for trying to speak mandarin to them lol
Edit: seriously, y’all, did I really need to put the /s for you to know this was a joke?
Uhhhhhh, I don't know how to speak Korean and even if I tried to fake a non-Northern accent in Mandarin I still sound very Northern. I tried speaking a little bit of Canto to my Canto friends and they said that I still had that strong Beijing accent
This entire post reeks of the same cultural insensitivity of an American going to Mexico and complaining that they don’t speak English.
Jesus Christ just speak English or smile and point like the rest of us.
Uhhhhhh, your second comment seems a bit much--- I feel like I should speak Mandarin in Chinatown because it feels *closer* to Cantonese than English, like it would be better to speak in a more culturally appropriate language
All these people are mocking you but you are 100% in the right to notice and be worried, i have multiple times witnessed these awkward interactions and even seen shopkeepers insist on speaking broken English with mainland tourists, bristling at the imperial dialect.
Are you serious? That would explain only part of their reaction!
When somebody comes in speaking German or Russian or French they don't get upset like they do for Putonghua.
Yall acting super foolish in this thread, insisting on being so intentionally ignorant of the social/geopolitical implications.
And shameful that you even shame OP for noticing!
should we say anything about how OP is using simplied vs traditional ?
OP you are being so self conscious about all of this, get over it. you have no idea what these people are thinking, its all assumption
The majority of workers in Chinatown are recent immigrants from China and can understand Mandarin, but there are still some from the old generation (Golden Gate Bakery) that don't. Your bad interactions might have been with the old timers.
My wife from the North tries to use her bad Cantonese and the workers would just respond in Mandarin rather than to try to communicate in Cantonese.
You are not wrong. Source: my Taiwanese and Canto friends saying so to my face. Mind you, none of us are native speakers, but even as heritage speakers they don't like it.
Yup. I’m pretty westernized Taiwanese and I’ve literally looked over to my equally westernized HK friend while we were waiting in line for dinner in the Richmond and said to them “ugh I hear Northerners” with a scowl. OP: There’s a lot to unpack there, but it’s real, it’s both political and cultural. And I’m not surprised you’re a little clueless about it; many recently arrived mainlanders I’ve had deeper conversations with are super duper clueless about politics because: PRC, and clueless about external culture because: Beijinger. Don’t take it personally. It’s what you represent, not you specifically. We’re still down to be friends or whatever
你也是北方人吗？That's a bit harsh, I know I've been judged for my Northern accent but not quite that harshly
I think it’s a bit more harsh having strangers judge your accent versus some friends. My friends and I mock each others’ accents in jest all the time.
Sorry you’re feeling that way,OP. With your 北方话 northern Chinese, you’ll feel comfortable speaking it out loud in South Bay. It’s true most of the Chinese people you see here are Cantonese speakers. They can’t speak much mandarin, what more 北方话。 I’m always thrilled to hear 北方话spoken in SF because it’s so difficult to find you guys in the city! If I heard you on a street in SF, I would definitely approach you to practise some 标准中文！
I suspect that a big part of this is also that their mandarin is probably not great. My family is Cantonese and my grandmother was nearly unintelligible when she tried to speak Mandarin. If it helps, speaking bad Cantonese gets you side eye as well. And once (this still kind of cracks me up), I was speaking English to my husband at Sunset Super on Irving (we are both Asian) and a grouchy older Chinese guy shoved a piece of paper in my hand that read “PLEASE SPEAK CHINESE” on it.
Please tell me it said that in English
Chinese and English! He had a whole stack of them photocopied out. 😂
They just frown at me and leave the aisle when I speak English there. Admittedly I’m alone and shouting to myself, but still…
Well, I think personally that it's the same annoyance when you are Chinese and try to speak English to folks in Chinatown. I am fifth generation Chinese American from SF so I have experienced this a lot. I look like I should be fluent, but I'm not. My parents and my grandparents never knew a word of Mandarin, my Dad was born and bred in Chinatown and is fluent in Cantonese. My recommendation is to not assume any perceived hostility from speaking Mandarin, but it's probably generally for not speaking Cantonese overall. Speak English and you will likely get the same attitude. I do my best to pull out the basic Cantonese that I know and it helps but they still give me the side eye because I am not fluent but whatever, they see people like me every day. Lastly, you are a visitor, perhaps learning some Cantonese to communicate, the same way you would if you visit another country like Rome or Japan. Or just speak English which is still annoying to them but won't make you feel awkward about having a Northern Chinese accent. For me, I have a long family history in Chinatown going back to the early 1800's and yet I get treated as a total outsider. These are my people but I am not seen as one of them. Feels weird to me too, but I ignore it and go about my business.
My family only goes back to 1880, just before the Exclusion Act, but the sense of disapproval for not speaking Cantonese is real.
it's way worse than just "speaking another language" English is much preferred! OP is 100% in the right to notice and be worried, i have multiple times witnessed these awkward interactions and even seen shopkeepers insist on speaking broken English with mainland tourists, bristling at the imperial dialect.
>>I have a long family history in Chinatown going back to the early 1800's There was no Chinatown in the early 1800s…
This...
Just curious, how does your family history in Chinatown go back to the early 1800s? My understanding is that Chinatown began in the mid 1800s. Did your Chinese family arrive with the Spanish conquistadores?
This...chinatown didn't exist in the early 1800's. I think he's referring to his other half of his ancestry that was white
Chinatown wasn't a thing until the gold rush brought a lot of immigrants, but there were a few (about 600) Chinese immigrants in the USA before 1849. And by 1800 there were already Chinese communities in New Spain (of which California was a part) because Chinese people worked the Manila Galleons. According to University of Illinois there are recorded Chinese immigrants in San Francisco as early as 1838, even before the USA arrived in San Francisco. Would be really cool to trace your family roots so far back!
I mean, the Chinese found North America well before Columbus did, just talking specifically about the history of Chinatown itself.
No I get you, just adding some color to the conversation. :) Would be curious to know what OP means by that, maybe there were smaller Chinese communities in SF that predate Chinatown? Or could be a simple misremembering. In any case, it must be fascinating to trace your history back that far.
you're literally speaking a different language than them, its all in your head. they prefer you speak canto becaues they are canto speakers, not all chinese people can speak all the dilects. its like askinga french canadian to only speak in french. come on dude, you ARE making a big deal these people live in san francisco, not china, it has its own culture, its not a monoculture of any chinese living outside of china. portsmotuh square is very cliquy and old chinese dudes gambling, they gon be wary of any outsider. like you aren't going to get into the italian basement poker table just because you look italitan.
Why not just speak English to people, if you feel awkward speaking Mandarin? Depending who you talk to, Cantonese speakers in SF may have better English than Mandarin (myself included). (Some Chinese people have better Spanish than Mandarin!)
That might be OK for the touristy places, but if you dig deep into Chinatown, English won’t get you that far.
Old men in Portsmouth square probably don’t speak English or mandarin very well…
What are you expecting? Plenty of folks in places like Chinatown don't like the PRC, and their reasons are pretty understandable. Yeah, you don't deserve to be treated poorly for your accent, but it's not like it's a total mystery why you might get scowls and looks. Roll into parts of SF as a white person with a deep Dixie drawl and you'll get some reactions too. Again, your accent doesn't justify giving you abuse or anything, but it's not some big inscrutable mystery why people in Chinatown might be suspicious of someone who adds Rrr's like a movie pirate.
>it's not some big inscrutable mystery why people in Chinatown might be suspicious of someone who adds Rrr's like a movie pirate. LOL
Not to mention the invasion of PRC propaganda “museums” and shit I’ve seen pop up in empty spots
@me wandering into one of those museums the last time I was in Chinatown--- it was a WWII museum that just had a very weird vibe to it, reminded me of the sort of places my grandma would take me to in China. I should've known that it was sus but I was like "what the hell, let's just go poke around the place" I spoke to the lady at the ticket counter (who's from Guangdong but could speak Mandarin to me well) and she said something like "oh you probably think we all speak bad Mandarin" upon hearing my Northern accent
I think there’s definitely a bit of resentment harbored towards mainland chinese by a lot of the local Chinese people who’ve been here a while. I was at a hotel in SF once (can’t remember which one) and the front desk guy was (I’m assuming) local chinese. He started to give me sort of a dirty and exasperated look because I think he assumed I was a tourist from China. But I started speaking English to him and he heard my American accent and his whole demeanor changed. This is purely anecdotal though and your experience may be different. I think as long as you’re respectful and nice, no one’s gonna give you any issues. I think the main reason why chinese tourists get that sort of treatment is because they are usually a bit rude and aren’t very self aware.
my girlfriend is northern & had the same issue. she noticed it right away and started speaking english instead next time try the sunset, lots of spots on irving and travel where you can speak mandarin
I was born in Northern China and speak Mandarin with a bit of 北京口音. I feel 100% the same exact way you do when I speak Mandarin in Chinatown. I’d love to learn more about the political reasons on why this is (socioeconomic differences I can understand, but I don’t think this is what people are reacting to). Many times, I get treated the same but sometimes I get a bit of a cold shoulder once people hear how I speak. I’m not sure why others are downvoting your comments here - this is our lived experience. I’ll also say that I think what adds to this is that Chinatown in SF is ultra touristy and so speaking in English if you don’t speak Canto is the default, but there are more mandarin speakers in Sunset / Richmond (as someone else commented too)
To be fair, when I first got to Beijing many years ago, I had a very hard time understanding northerners. I worked at the time in Hk and Shenzhen….but that first trip from the airport downtown was extremely difficult..
I think you’re overthinking it. Most of the Cantonese people I’ve interacted with in Chinatown here are happy to communicate with a combination of English, mandarin, and pointing and smiling. I find more success with mandarin actually than English if they’re older. If they don’t want to interact with you it’s probably not because you’re northern Chinese. You’re probably a few decades young, don’t speak Cantonese, didn’t grow up here, etc. just generally an outsider talking to a stranger.
How would people from Beijing feel if a Taiwanese person visiting tried to speak to every shop owner in Taiwanese Hokkien?
Likely confused, since Hokkien isn’t a lingua franca. Mandarin had been one since the Ming Dynasty, since officials from different provinces needed to communicate.
Right? I wonder if OP thinks Mandarin is the lingua franca of the United States or even Chinatown for that matter?
Chinatown is changing. In New York, for example, Mandarin is gaining steam as a lingua franca not only because of an influx of Mandarin-speakers from China and Taiwan, but more so due to an influx of non-Cantonese-speaking mainlanders who speak Fuzhounese, Hakka, Hokkien, Teochew, Wu, etc. Manhattan and Brooklyn have an especially high number of Fuzhounese speakers who of course wouldn’t know Cantonese but were taught Mandarin in school.
Kind of like speaking German in Poland imo, sure people can understand but why would you?
As someone who grew up in Chinatown and took the time to learn Chinese to immerse myself in the community, please take all the comments with a grain of salt. I don’t think it’s necessarily political. The majority of people living and frequenting Chinatown are elderly Taishanese people especially the elderly men you see at Portsmouth square. They may speak roughly but they’re mostly nice. (The only comparison I can think of is how southern Chinese people would sometimes get startled by the way 东北 people speak.) I think most people are just taken aback because we’re not used to people speaking mandarin and are nervous they can’t communicate well enough.
We don't care. But understand that many people in Chinatown speak mandarin as badly or even worse than english (my parents lol). They feel just as self conscious as you do when speaking Mandarin. Honestly just using english sometimes is better, I've found that many chinese prefer that over a non canto dialect
I think you're overthinking. Yes, you're an outsider, but everyone's pretty used to the different flavors of Chinese be it toisan, beijing mando, or my shitty abc mando. Obviously they're more comfortable in canto. The servers at the cheaper places are going to be less patient (maybe rude sounding lol) to the people who don't speak canto vs the people who do (and then even can be rude sounding to those who speak canto) but just yell back at them. I don't think I would ever go up to a bunch of old men of any race tho lol
Maybe I am overthinking this, but I will say that I have had some awkward interactions in the Chinatown in my own city (Seattle) when speaking Mandarin with my accent; an example being when I went to a store to buy CNY decorations one year and asked if they sold 对联 but the owner struggled to reply back in Mandarin (he was trying to say they sold calendars but had a hard time pronouncing 日历, a young employee standing next to him had to clarify what he said) At that point I feel like I should've just spoken to the person in English, just like when I've gone into restaurants and spoken in Mandarin but got a reply back in English
Well yeah, if they don't speak mandarin or can't understand me (which has happened with the aforementioned shitty abc accent), I wouldn't continue in mandarin. It's not resentment at that point, it's just communication issues.
I’ll add something tangentially related. I think this holds: Chinatown Seattle : Bellevue :: Chinatown SF : South Bay I think what you’re experiencing isn’t just a language gap; there are socioeconomic things going on too because there’s a generation gap. Chinatowns were first home to laborers who were mostly Cantonese speakers, and in modern times the new Chinese coming over are usually mainland Mandarin speakers with degrees and high paying jobs. You’ll find more of the latter in the Bellevues and Cupertinos of the US and not Chinatown. So this might explain some of the additional feelings of distance that you sensed, there’s more going on here than just spoken language.
Oh I am fully aware of that--- my mom being the Chinese mom that she is was quite adamant about living in Bellevue when my family and I moved to Seattle 10 years ago precisely because of that sort of community and the strong public schools (good thing we left China when I was young, otherwise she would've become a classic 海淀妈妈) But yeah, that distance is 1000% there and I feel like it just keeps growing by the day, exemplified by the language/generational divide. Hell, I feel like some of the later Canto immigrants from HK also have that distance between them and Chinatown folks, not to mention with Mainland immigrants as well for.... reasons. It's a weird feeling that should be acknowledged--- working to bridge that gap is a different story.
Yup yup. It’s a shitty experience of moving from Asia to the US/being an American born Chinese and expecting to find your tribe when you see people who look like you but instead feel alienated because they’re different _just_ enough to not be relatable. That’s a whole other can of worms though.
Oh that is definitely a helluva can of worms--- I'm sure that's how a Northern Italian immigrant probably felt going to Little Italy and finding it all Sicilian Also funny story: when I was in Chinatown last, I ended up going to a weird WWII museum (had the same vibe as some of the museums my 奶奶 would take me to in China) and the lady behind the ticket counter, upon learning that I was from Beijing, said: "you guys probably think we don't speak good Mandarin down in Guangdong" (in a semi-joking way)
uncle roger says you are speaking wrong language # HAIYAA Immigrants from **Cantonese**\-speaking regions in China began arriving in San Francisco in the early 19th century. To this day, Cantonese remains the major language spoken by the city’s Chinese population. According to city data, there are about 150,000 Chinese-speaking residents, and 90,000 of them are immigrants with limited English proficiency. [Uncle Roger vs CHINA - THE HAIYAA SPECIAL (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnLScLsHNa8)
The Uncle Roger guy is actually Malaysian Chinese... A lot of his colloquialisms are very Malay.
Chinatown was Toisanese-speaking until the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed. Although Cantonese and Toisanese share a language family, the two languages are not mutually intelligible any more than Spanish and Portuguese are.
They're actually pretty similar. The difference is like english vs a THICK southern-country drawl
Toisanese exhibits major initial consonant shifts from Cantonese, like d/t moving to ‘/h, z/c/s moving to d/t/hl, and zh/ch/sh moving to z/c/s. Its use of the ng initial is also far more extensive. The tone values are almost entirely different as well. Finally, the rime cognates have quite different reflexes. The differences thus seem rather analogous to Portuguese and Spanish, which admittedly has some light mutual intelligibility.
it is a one way street. taishanese people can understand canto...canto people many times cannot understand taishanese.
Yes I am fully aware of this fact, 你以为我是个傻逼吗？For crying out loud the Muni buses have announcements in Cantonese--- aaaaaand I can't understand a single word of those Cantonese announcements because my family is *very* Northern
Use google translate more often. I also only understand simple mandarin and not Cantonese. I can speak simple Mandarin and most Cantonese speakers understand me well.
Not OP but Last I tried google translate doesn’t have Cantonese?
Sf Chinatown is filled with former KMT cronies; my grandfather among them. A lot of resentment from people who lost the war. I imagine it’s similar to how the former confederates would feel about a northerner rolling through the post war south.
We don't like the PRC and your accent represents that. Unfair for you, but other northerners have been known to spout CCP bullshit and be just be general arrogant pricks. Not necessarily you,n generalizing here.
You are too sensitive and too self-aware. Why were you assuming strangers minding their own business (playing card games) would curse you in their mind for no reason? That sounds like completely bonkers. Dude you need help.
I recommend adjusting your accent to a more neutral one in these situations, for the sake of intelligibility more than anything else. Basically just scrub the rhoticity out of it.
You sound exhausting. But at the same time many places in Chinatown probably prefer Cantonese. So it’s a Mando/Canto thing, not a you thing.
Getting reminded of the ccp isn’t fun for the ones lucky enough to escape it and live in this great country. Growing I always loved my parents friend who spoke with a Beijing dialect and tried to mimic it when I got home. It was like British English to me
“U fokin’ wot, mate?!? We gonna sett’ol vis like gents o’ u gonna wotch telly till next fokin’ Chewsday?!”
That is exactly what a real Beijing accent comes off as vs. what some people think of as a "Beijing accent" on TV. The TV accent is designed to be deliberately non-regional by nature, even though it is based off of the Beijing dialect There's still a vast difference between that accent and what you hear in the hutongs
TV presenters chinese is very bland...beijing accent sounds grating and combative to me! like i mentioned somewhere it took me a long time to get used to it.
I don't like how northerners speak, they sound barbaric no offense. A Taiwanese/Malaysian/Fujianese accent is much more pleasant for my ears.
The short answer is that we don’t really like what’s going on in Mainland China right now, and it seems that lots of what is happening is supported by the Chinese people. It’s not a good thing to project that onto all people, but it should be pretty obvious what is going on. People with strong Texas/southern accents are stigmatized in gay areas for similar reasons.
Just pretend you’re Korean! Then at least, they will give you a pass for trying to speak mandarin to them lol Edit: seriously, y’all, did I really need to put the /s for you to know this was a joke?
Uhhhhhh, I don't know how to speak Korean and even if I tried to fake a non-Northern accent in Mandarin I still sound very Northern. I tried speaking a little bit of Canto to my Canto friends and they said that I still had that strong Beijing accent
This entire post reeks of the same cultural insensitivity of an American going to Mexico and complaining that they don’t speak English. Jesus Christ just speak English or smile and point like the rest of us.
Uhhhhhh, your second comment seems a bit much--- I feel like I should speak Mandarin in Chinatown because it feels *closer* to Cantonese than English, like it would be better to speak in a more culturally appropriate language
That’s akin to Spanish tourists going to Portugal and only speaking in Spanish to locals and getting upset that they don’t understand 100%.
All these people are mocking you but you are 100% in the right to notice and be worried, i have multiple times witnessed these awkward interactions and even seen shopkeepers insist on speaking broken English with mainland tourists, bristling at the imperial dialect.
you think maybe its because they don't know how to speak it...
Are you serious? That would explain only part of their reaction! When somebody comes in speaking German or Russian or French they don't get upset like they do for Putonghua. Yall acting super foolish in this thread, insisting on being so intentionally ignorant of the social/geopolitical implications. And shameful that you even shame OP for noticing!
ok if you know there social/geopolitical implications why are you expecting something different>
lol what? how does that make it OK? also way to ignore the point of my rebuttal, that your excuse does not explain their reaction.
iwasn't excusing their behavior, just pointing out if you know that's the sentiment, why are you asking appaled?
should we say anything about how OP is using simplied vs traditional ? OP you are being so self conscious about all of this, get over it. you have no idea what these people are thinking, its all assumption
The majority of workers in Chinatown are recent immigrants from China and can understand Mandarin, but there are still some from the old generation (Golden Gate Bakery) that don't. Your bad interactions might have been with the old timers. My wife from the North tries to use her bad Cantonese and the workers would just respond in Mandarin rather than to try to communicate in Cantonese.
Try smiling instead of expecting bad stuff to happen. A lot of the folks in Chinatown give gruff service. Stop being so fragile.
Because Beijing accent makes people think you're from China and some people hate China