On the September 30 issue of the MX daily newspaper, a Sarah from Box Hill wrote on the MX Talk section of the paper her experience one day while on a train to the city. Her husband and another man were speaking to each other in an Indian dialect when a woman sitting a few seats away started yelling at them.
The woman said, “Will you stop talking to each other in some other sh*t language? I have been hearing this for the past 20 minutes. You are not supposed to talk in my country in another language.”
Let me just quote the next part:
Once my husband got over the initial shock of such rudeness and arrogance, he said, “This is racism! We are talking to each other. We are not talking to you.”
Upon which the woman continued to curse them in a colourful language, which my husband and his friend completely ignored.
And to top it off, when the train approached the city, another passenger came near my husband and said, “Shes’ not wrong. When you are in Australia, you’ve got to speak in English.”
Unbelievable! Sarah’s husband is right. He wasn’t talking to the woman seated a few seats away from them. I mean, Raquel and I would talk to each other in Tagalog because it’s what we’re most comfortable with. Sure, as this blog can attest, we could speak and comprehend English rather well but when talking to each other, why wouldn’t we speak in Tagalog?
I understand that it would be rude to continue speaking in Tagalog if we were in the company of friends and companions who wouldn’t be able to speak Tagalog. In that case, we would speak in English because we wanted the others to be included in the conversation. It’s just plain courtesy.
However, if we are in a public place, like in a train with complete strangers, we don’t have to exert ourselves by conversing in English when we could easily communicate in Tagalog. After all, the strangers around us do not need to understand what we were talking about. If we were talking in English, it would have been rude of them to be listening in on our conversation anyway.
So, I think that Sarah’s husband and friend wasn’t being rude to anybody when they were talking in their Indian dialect. It’s probably just easier for them to talk to each other in their own tongue, is all. But the woman who yelled, well, she was being rude. Who was she that she needed to understand what they were talking about? Was she angry that she couldn’t eavesdrop on them?
Take a look at it this way. Imagine if two Australians went to visit Indonesia and they both know how to speak Indonesian, would they talk to each other in Indonesian in a bus when they could better express themselves to one another in English? Should all Australians visiting India, Indonesia, Japan, Hong Kong or some other non-English-speaking country be required to speak in that country’s native tongue when they are there?
It’s absolutely ridiculous! Next you would probably required Americans to speak in an Australian accent when they’re here! Then maybe the Americans can ban Australians from using Aussie-slang when they are in the US?
I wonder if that woman had any parents or relatives who weren’t born in Australia. Like, maybe a parent or relative that migrated from, say, Italy. Would she require her parents or relatives to speak in English to their Italian friends if they don’t have a good command of the English language?
It’s just stupid.
Fortunately, on yesterday’s issue of MX, a few people wrote to express their support for Sarah. However, there was a John from Broadmeadows who wrote in the following:
Sarah, the woman, although rude, was not completely in the wrong. It’s rude to speak another language in front of someone.
So, like I said. If John visited another country like Indonesia with a friend, he shouldn’t be speaking to this friend of his in English when in public places where locals (and complete strangers) could overhear them talking. After all, it’s rude to talk to your friend in a language both of you are most comfortable with in the presence of strangers in a foreign country. Right?
