Mildly angry, totally obstinate

Just wanted to share this experience with you :

We were short of staff, so I was asked to log in under the malay hotline. This isn't as difficult as it seems because unlike our chinese callers, there are very few malay callers. In fact, none for the 2 hours I was in.

But here's the rub :
Call came in, I did my greeting in English, and there was dead silence. I repeated my greeting about 3 times. And then finally, in am extremely peeved and petulant voice, the man asked - in mandarin - if I could speak Chinese. (On the Malay hotline??)

Now, the technology for my call centre is wonderful. CRM system and databases are linked so I can see at a glance your name, ID #, mailing address, your customer status and which language preference you've indicated. And this was a new ID; foreign nationals converting to Singapore PR status have a special series of numbers. And the petulant voice was speaking with a Mainland China accent.

Most Mainland Chinese nationals come to Singapore to work because the money is better than their home country and there are loads of Chinese here. Which is great. More power to you. But they expect you to speak Mandarin. Like them.

I refuse.

I am Singaporean.

Mandarin is not my mother tongue and English is the official business language here.

I abso-fucking-lutely refuse.

I can buy bread and take my taxis in broken chinese but I am NOT going to be drawn into a convoluted conversation about premiums, automatic policy loans and maturity bonuses in mandarin.

So I tried a little experiment.

I tried to be extremely polite and modulated my voice accordingly. I sounded sweet, regretful, soft and polite. But I refused to speak in Mandarin. And this fucking prick, would just repeat in Chinese, Can you speak Mandarin?? in that peeved tone. His kids were giggling in the background, and he refused to budge. Neither did I. I'd say I'm sorry, but I don't understand. This is the English hotline. May I give you the Mandarin number please? and he'd wait, then repeat his demand for me to speak in Mandarin.

After about 15 rounds of this, I said in my sweetest voice that I thought this was a prank, I could hear laughter, and that this was a company phone line. Not to be abused. And hung up on him.

Oh, he got raging mad. Called back like 5 times. I know, because I took his call thereafter on 2 more occasions. And my colleague took his call twice too. EVen my colleague called him a mad man. And guess what? On those 2 occasions when I answered, he spoke to me in English. Fucking wanker. He UNDERSTOOD what I said about the line not being a Chinese hotline and still he persisted.

On my way home, I was fully cognizant of the fact that I may have been a bitch to have pretended to be obstinate. But this is my country. I am Singaporean. This isn't how we do things here. The local Uncles and Aunties will try and understand me. I will speak broken english to help them understand. We compromise.

I don't understand these Mainland Chinese. You move, you respect your host nation, you learn and adapt to fit in. You don't expect the locals to fit YOU. We didn't invite you here. You came on your own accord.


You bloody well make the effort.