Complete and Creative

Four-Course Meal, Four-Language Dinner (2/2)

…continued from

In case you were wondering, everyone in the group with the exception of the Brazilian guy and Japanese girl were ethnic Chinese, but the Japanese girl was born in Beijing and probably speaks Mandarin better than I do, which means everyone who spoke Mandarin in the group could communicate in Mandarin at an advanced level. So why didn’t we all just speak in Mandarin?

Not exactly what we ate, but close enough.

Well, besides the fact that we would’ve left the Brazilian completely out of the loop, the French girls were more used to speaking to each other and the Belgian guy in French, and the German girls were more comfortable speaking to each other in German, just as I am more fluid with speaking in English when hanging out even with some of my Chinese American friends.

Now can you imagine how many languages were flying across the dinner table? (We were having dim sum by the way.)

Three people talking to each other in French, two chatting with each other in German, two people switching between English and Spanish, two people switching among Cantonese, English, and Mandarin, the majority speaking in Mandarin, English being thrown around whenever there was a joke meant to be heard and understood by all. It was quite a confusing dinner.

At one point, the Belgian jokingly lost it, threw up his hands in frustration at me and the Brazilian, and grunted in Mandarin, “Stop speaking in Spanish! I don’t understand it!” My quick reprisal in Mandarin was, “Well, I don’t understand French either.” Then to the Germans, “Or German.” Then in English translation to the Brazilian, much to the relief of everyone who didn’t speak Spanish.

Later on in the night, one of the German girls asked the Brazilian guy in English, “Do you want to make babies?” What she meant to ask him was whether or not he planned to settle down, get married, and start a family one day. Obviously, that wasn’t how it sounded, especially to a Brazilian guy. Luckily, she was only fifteen, so the Brazilian didn’t take it the wrong way. Or did he?

Anyway, just to make sure, I jumped in and clarified the meaning for both parties. The German girl was embarrassed, and the Brazilian guy was amused. All was well. The funny thing was that a few days earlier at lunch the Brazilian guy and I had discussed in Spanish right in front of the German girls that they were too young for him but not too young for me. I’ll leave it at that.

Sometime throughout dinner, I casually asked the Japanese girl if she had a boyfriend. She said yes, at which point the German girls chimed in and chanted, “You have no chance!” This was a tidbit thoroughly unrelated to the main topic of the article. I just thought it’d be fun to include it.

I’ve met many more people from various parts of the world since this dinner. I’ve also been to more than a dozen additional countries since dining with those fine people, some of whom I have visited in their home countries. But it still stands tall as one of the most memorable dinners I have ever had. No contest.

So, how was your dinner?