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Q: Do you think speaking/understanding Chinese can be disadvantageous here?
Ok obviously knowing Chinese opens up a whole myriad of opportunities with regard to making friends, jobs, understanding the culture etc etc, but can our knowledge of Chinese sometimes land us in it? For those of you that speak Chinese - do you miss the days of getting by playing the "dumb foreigner" card? I've often found that due to my ability to speak Chinese I automatically gain extra responsibilities in my expat friend group regarding being the haggler, speaker, translator and so on, and sometimes it makes various situations demanding and tiresome. What do you think?
It's like anything else the more you know the more responsibilities are given to you and the more pay you get.
I often wonder if anything good can possibly come from knowing what the wife and the mother in law are yelling about. Besides that, I can only think of it as an advantage.
Scandinavian:
Oh, one thing I am glad to be rid of by not understanding much Chinese is all the half phone conversations one hears on busses and trains.
There is nothing wrong with pretending not to know. That's a genius at work, because he doesn't want to do whatever task they are trying to set before him.
