The other morning I watched a middle-aged white man begin berating a crew member as I waited in line at a McDonalds. It’s reasonable to expect paying customers to complain when there’s a mistake with their order, so what made this moment in Japan stand out that I’d write about it? Read on to find out!
To put it simply, it was his attitude that hinted at what I interpreted to be racist attitudes and a sense of self superiority that reflects what I believe to be an ever present problem that is the legacy of British and American colonialism/imperialism which some white people, unfortunately, take with them when they go to another country.
The reality is that being able to speak English does allow people from different countries to communicate with one another, perhaps across more countries than any other language in the present. This can be argued because so many different countries and cultures teach it as a (or perhaps the only) second/foreign language they integrated into their education curriculum. Many countries with colonial pasts that try to reclaim their pre colonial identities may successfully reclaim their own language, but I don’t think the English language ever truly disappeared from their collective knowledge and experience.
Much knowledge of the English language had already been instilled within a sizeable portion of the population by the time the British withdrew from most of its colonies, leaving in place a system and environment that the the colonized had adapted to and adopted, willingly or unwillingly. Rather than discarding it all and doing something drastic like banning the English language after gaining independence, colonization left its marks and scars.
But the unfortunate side effect of the English language becoming widespread in use is how some people may adopt the belief that the English language is superior based on the argument position of its functionality across the world. This attitude assigns a higher value to the English language based on applied use in intercultural communication and ignores the value that different languages and cultures have simply for being incomprehensible to people who can only speak English.
For anyone that has travelled to another country where English is not the national language or a legally recognized secondary language, it should be obvious, if not expected, that not everyone in that country is going to speak English or possess at least some degree of functional proficiency with the language as a result of study or exposure to it at some point in life. Heck, even the United States has many people residing in it that do not speak English even if they’re surrounded by it.
People who have worked in the service industry probably know how difficult it can be when they come across people who choose to be difficult and treat staff with disrespect because they act like it’s within their rights to as a paying customer. It could be an intimidation tactic to talk rudely and uncooperatively until they get what they want or get the attention of the “person in charge.”
An unhappy customer would suggest the service being provided is subpar, which would mean trouble for businesses that sustain themselves on keeping people happy if not at least content. This may lead the people in charge to find fault (even if there might not be any) with the staff, to appease the complaining customer in hopes that the customer won’t go badmouthing their services and in turn affect the business.
Dealing with the disrespect comes with the job some may argue, but I’m more on the side of treating people with patience and respect as the default standard rather than being condescending to try and exploit the situation for some imagined domination of a verbal back and forth to get what you want.
But returning to the topic of this story, what crossed the line this time was how it went beyond rude and disrespectful in my opinion, based on what I saw and heard.
I have no way of knowing if the man was truly ignorant or just said whatever he wanted in English because he was confident no one would understand the meaning behind his choice of words below.
“Sorry, I don’t speak Chinese.”
Those words might be something I’d be okay with hearing if I was back in the states, since there can be a large mix of different Asian ethnicities and someone who doesn’t know a thing about the differences might just casually assume someone Asian looking speaking a language they don’t understand is speaking Chinese.
But this man is at a McDonalds in Japan. As someone with Chinese ethnic heritage, I don’t take offense if ignorance is the cause of what I mentioned above in the US, but this happened in Japan, a country I have come to love as well.
So who in the right mind that travelled internationally would mix up Japan and China, much less assume these two countries speak the same language? There maybe similarities in language rooted in historical cultural exchanges, but if I were to use a European equivalent of what happened, that’s like going to France and saying you don’t speak Spanish to a French person speaking to you in French.
With the COVID virus still evolving and Japan still closed to international tourist travel, it’s safe to say that the man was likely not a tourist, but actually residing in Japan and perhaps even doing something for a living there. Which makes it all the sadder if someone lives in Japan and believes everyone is speaking Chinese, or is deliberately making a racist grouping of East Asian people as all being Chinese, and getting away with the bigotry.
When a person goes to another country it is to be expected that there would be a language barrier that causes problems in communication. They are also there as a guest, if not a refugee, because they do not hold citizenship and are allowed to stay as long as they continue to have permission to.
The US is no exception in the way a majority of people expect or demand that people seeking to enter the country legally should speak English, the common law language of the country that is spoken by of the vast majority of Americans, and how many Americans would want people they deem to be “unamerican” to get the hell out of the country.
So when the man at McDonalds starts pointing his finger at the crew member and telling them they need to speak English or learn it, it’s hypocrisy without a doubt. But perhaps in his mind, English is an international if not universal language that everyone needs to speak. Which is an attitude is think is rooted in the legacy of colonization by the West, and upheld by the US as a superpower that benefited from the system left behind by the British as they waned in power.
I don’t think anyone who has a decent grasp of, or sincerely tried to learn at least another language would have a tendency to chastize somebody for not speaking English, because they’d understand the learning it and how despite putting in the time, not everyone has a successful learning outcome.
I may be putting words in his mouth, but it sounded like to me, he was shoving the responsibility of learning another language in order to communicate with and understand people of a different culture in their own country, and telling them they need to learn his foreign tongue and serve him, the all important customer from another country getting take out at a localized McDonalds. All at the same time telling them in English he doesn’t understand Chinese.
In the end the man did get his small cup of coffee at the price of 100 yen, but I can’t help if he tried to weasel his way out of paying it by demanding coffee and being difficult about it. Someone being a hassle isn’t worth the trouble and no one’s going to die because a cup of coffee was just given away to get some angry foreigner who doesn’t understand a thing you’re saying to get out of your hair.
I wasn’t there to witness him making his order and paying for it at the start, but the prices are cleared labeled in Arabic numerals, so he should’ve known the price of what he ordered and if they didn’t match, it wasn’t because McDonalds tried to overcharge him or give him some kind of discount, but because he didn’t bother to do the math.
I thought about jumping in to help with communication, but the crew wasn’t breaking down or anything from the rude attitude and I felt that they could handle it even if it was a frustrating and troublesome ordeal. The man claimed to be in a hurry because he’s on business, but I kinda doubt it since he was wearing a t-shirt and shorts and carried a backpack that had a pair of what looked like plastic drumsticks sticking out of one compartment.
My goal is to stay positive with my writing, so this rant is not what I usually would write about, but I did so in hopes of getting the message out to others about the bad behavior English speakers exhibit often enough outside their home country. If you yourself engage in such behavior or if you know someone who does, I pray that you learn or help others to improve their behavior and learn to empathize. The world still has bigots and racists and there’s not much that can be legally done, so it falls onto regular people to change their behavior.
Thank you for taking the time to read to the end. I hope it was an enjoyable read.
One Chance Works 