Aim for the best, prepare for the worst.
The most interesting aspect of bilingualism is numbers. Counting numbers is such a fundamental skill that it is often used a tool to determine one’s native language. However, there is much more happening when a bilingual person counts. They can even count in bilingual numbers.
Recently there is an incident of Chinese couple behaving rudely on a plane and forced the plane to make an U-turn.
This is captured on a number of news media: Washington Post, Free Malaysia Today, Stomp and Stomp Facebook Page.
The most detailed account, as of now, can be found on a video at v.qq.com.
We can see that on different websites, the responses on the comment section are quite different in terms of the focus.
Washington Post: The comments on are mostly revolved around an awkward expression used in the article.
Free Malaysia Today: Debating whether this is an isolated case or it reflects the behavior of the Chinese people in general.
Stomp and Stomp Facebook Page: Mostly scolding the Chinese people in general.
The very different responses from different websites can only be explained by the segregation of the Internet communities, which I briefly discussed in my previous post. Basically people have different presumptions and life experiences, these lead to different views and stands on certain issues. Internet, instead of encouraging discussions and resolve the differences in opinions, sometimes further reinforces these one-sided mindsets and allow them to grow in “closed” communities.
This “closed community” phenomenon is most obvious on Stomp and Stomp Facebook Page, whereas on other more “open” websites, there are still some level of discussions going on.
Maybe we really need the net to be more “neutral”.
I often consider myself fluent in English, not as fluent as native speakers but enough to impress them as a non-native speaker. However, I proved myself wrong.
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