This scenario took place in a Chinese language
class in Taiwan during an Immersion Programme. The class consisted of
Singaporeans and one exchange student from Germany. Lets call the exchange
student Friedrich. Friedrich received a lot of attention in class for being the
only exchange student. Occasionally, our Taiwanese Teacher would call names and
directed questions to us during lesson. However, we did notice that Friedrich
got called more often than the rest of us. After being called multiple times to
answer, Friedrich started to feel sullen and exclaimed "Why me AGAIN?”.
Our teacher noticed that he was unhappy and subsequently stopped calling him.
In the later part of the lesson, we were instructed by our teacher to create a
sentence using a verb we had just learned. The adjective was "漂亮"
which means "beautiful". Some of us, including Friedrich, volunteered
to share our answers with the rest. Friedrich sentence was "台北机场 不漂亮"
which translates to "Taipei airport is not beautiful". Our teacher
was taken aback by his answer. She regained her composure and then explained to
Friedrich that in Taiwan, it is not very nice to give negative comments in a
direct manner and especially something negative on a country that you are
visiting.
In my opinion, I think Friedrich felt that our teacher was picking on
him although I would not think that way if I were Friedrich. I would think that
she wants to ensure that I learn well. I think the reason she kept selecting
him was that she was fond of him and being a non-asian, she probably thought
that he would need more help to learn Chinese. It is quite clear that Friedrich
did not feel the same way. While I am not sure if this is a result from culture
differences, I do think that the directness in Friedrich's words could be due
to his culture. According to an online source, Germans have a blunt
communication style. He probably thought voicing out his honest opinion was
innocent. However, the teacher was offended by it. Conflict could occur when
there are cultural differences in communication styles. In some culture, it is
better not to say anything if we do not have anything nice to say.
