Suzanna the German had spent a year in China for her Year Abroad, so she was fluent at the end of it.
One day she was out and about in Xiamen (/Amoy, S.E. China) when two local women noticed her, and started a running commentary on her, in Chinese:
“Oh, look at that Westerner! Look at her legs: they’re like tree trunks. And look at her bum, and the size of it! She has such a big nose!”
At this point, Suzanna couldn’t take any more of it, so she said to the women, in fluent Chinese: “You shouldn’t be talking about people like that. Don’t you know it’s very rude?”
One of the women thought about it for a few seconds, then said to her friend: “It’s not rude. These Westerners don’t understand Chinese anyway!”
(China, mid-1980s)
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