Witty Surprises from Multilingual People That Left Others Speechless

CR Staff - JU - May 18, 2023

38. A Delightful Experience

I’m half Indonesian. I was born and lived there for quite some time before I moved to the States. I was on vacation in Jakarta this past summer, visiting family and catching up with old friends.

I went out one night with an old friend I was extremely close with. Let’s call her Y. We pretty much went on a date. I took her to the movies, had dinner, and we spent a good amount of time at the arcades. We linked up with our old clique afterwards.

When I dropped her home, her mom was at the door. I got out of the car to greet her and show her some respect. As soon as she sees me, she says, in English, “Hello! My name is X, I’m Y’s mother. Did you guys have fun?” Afterwards, she starts whispering to her daughter. I was able to hear a bit of it and realized they were speaking in conversational Bahasa. I overheard the lines, “Ini cowok yang kamu bilang, ya? Kalian sudah pacaran?” Which translates as “Is this the boy you were talking about? Are you guys dating now?” Her daughter just blushes in embarrassment, hugs me, and says good night to me as she assumes I’m about to leave.

Before I leave, I say good night, and I just let out this line, “Terima kasih, Ibu. Selamat malam. Semoga saya dan Y bisa ketemu lagi minggu depan sebelom saya balik ke America.” Which translates to “Thank you, ma’am. Good night! Hope your daughter and I can meet up again next week before I have to head back to the States.”

Her jaw just dropped, she was extremely surprised and realized that I understood what she was saying to her daughter; her daughter was just laughing at her. She hits me up later that night on FT saying her mom was still not over the fact that I am fluent in Bahasa. She then confesses her feelings to me.

cvrlxs

<< Previous

NEXT >>

39. In an Effort to Profit

Taiwan vacation. 2015.

Me and my sis just learnt Japanese so we communicated in some. The shop owner overheard us and thought we were from Japan, but we are Chinese.

He said (to his partner) in Mandarin ” Japanese again. Now we can jack up the prices .”

So I greeted them in Chinese and boy was it fun seeing that look on his face.

kkiwillreply

<< Previous

NEXT >>

40. The Convenience Fee Vanished Overnight

My mom is half Filipino and half Chinese, and we lived in Hong Kong for most of my childhood before we came to North America, so we’re all fluent in Cantonese. One day, my mom was trying to send money to relatives back in Asia through Western Union. The teller at the desk was a portly Chinese man. My mother had an argument with the man because he was trying to charge her some arbitrary “convenience fee” of $10 that she has never been charged for before. They fight over it for a while in English, going back and forth. Eventually, another employee comes, and asks the teller my mom was arguing with “What’s going on?” In Cantonese. The teller proceeds to say “this stupid b*tch refuses to pay me, I can’t get her chubby *ss out of here”. At this point my mom is livid. She takes a deep breath and calmly answers “well maybe I’d leave if you let me send money to my family, and stop charging me extra so you can buy lunch for YOUR chubby *ss.” Both employee’s cheeks turn red and suddenly become extremely nice, grovelling and praising my mom’s fluency in Cantonese and nervously laughing and repeating “we didn’t know you were Chinese!” over and over. The convenience fee suddenly disappeared.

jaythaprxphet

<< Previous