Well, Jack may talk Thai very well, but this Southern Louisiana native does not! (kudos to you if you got the movie reference!). It seems that since I have been here that I have had to resort to grunting and pointing in order to get my point across in some cases. I realize that to some that may sound rude, however, our culture training expert assured us that it was an effect and accepted form of communication. In any event, I have also found another good form of communication. Ready for this? It will blow your mind. When a person is trying to ask you a question in another language and you have no earthly idea what they are trying to ask you, simple look lost and begin looking around frantically for the nearest person who speaks both languages! Yeah, I know. Rocket science, right???
No, seriously though, I did have that happen to me the other day in a home store. I was looking for bedding and the very nice sales girl kept asking me if i had some sort of card . I assumed she meant credit card and was just using the wrong word. So, since we were clearly having a misunderstanding and since standing there playing charades with her was getting us no where, i began my frantic search for the nearest bilingual speaker, my guide in this case. Turns out, the darn lady was no where to be found and I was left to figure it out on my own. And figure it out I did! As it turns out she was asking me if I had an index card. Since I originally assumed she was using the wrong word for credit card and then made a second assumption that she wanted to see my shopping list (seemed sort of intrusive but whatever), it never dawned on me that I was standing in a store called "Index". The poor sales lady was simply asking me if I had a shoppers savers card (not in so many words mind you) because it would adjust the price by 5%. Boy did I feel like an ass after that one, lol! Once we got the whole thing figured out my sweet guide showed up (thanks for nothing in this case!).
So, with that incident behind me I realized something about the way I speak. I use way too many words. Seriously, the English language is awesome. Like, LOVE it!. However, we have a lot of fillers in our sentences, and using less words, especially here, will get your point across so much better. For instance, when I went back to Index to finish my shopping I told the sales lady "I would like to look at something cheaper" when she told me the price of the bedding that I wanted . What she heard however was "blah, blah, blah, cheaper". I know this to be true because she looked at me all cheery and and asked "cheaper?". So after I realized this, may day consisted of questions the likes of "cheaper? different color? " and sentences the likes of "no, no like." English teachers would be having a field day! Oh, I have also found that carrying around a book with pictures of the things you want and then pointing at the picture also helps. Just throwing that out there.
Anyway, communication problems aside, things are going okay over here at the moment. We move tomorrow to our permanent place and hopefully life will settle down somewhat. I'm looking forward to being able to cook more as well as I do believe that my stomach can take no more exotic food. Moving to somewhere where the food is shall we say "different" is THE BEST diet ever, by the way! So, until next time I hope all is well!
Kristen
No comments:
Post a Comment