How many ways do you know how to say “How are you?”
I know someone who can say it in, I don’t know, 30 languages? Impressive, no?
When I hosted him for a week as an overseas guest, the first thing he would say to any service staff we encountered was “How are you?” in their native language.
A Chinese yum cha waitress was chuffed, a Vietnamese waitress rolled her eyes and stifled a sneer, and a Burmese restaurateur asked him a question in return, only to be met with a blank look because “How are you?” were literally the only Burmese words he knew.
He thought he was being woke and I thought he was being an annoying show-off. It was a long week.
Before you think I’m unnecessarily harsh or that I think everybody should stop trying to learn foreign languages, let me come back to this further down the piece, because I want to first talk about the reactions to what, on the surface, seems to be a benevolent, culturally-aware gesture.
The reason is that these three different responses are broadly representative of the comments I see online whenever public exercises in cultural wokeness go awry, as in these instances –
- The New York Times shares a video of Singaporean Chicken Curry which bears exactly zero resemblance to chicken curry as Singaporeans know it (https://www.8days.sg/eatanddrink/newsandreviews/uncle-roger-new-york-times-singaporean-chicken-curry-15499278)
