As part of the Foreign Disney Travel Experience, tourists and expats alike take on a persona of exaggerated enthusiasm or escalated engagement. They revert back to that persona, who used to talk to small babies with big eyes and slow speech and exaggerated hand movements. This persona is used to deal with every Mexican they meet, and in particular children.
It is an interesting persona, because at the base of it, is the failure to understand that the person or baby you are talking to in no way understands a single word you are saying yet there is a persistence to continue the communication despite the only response of giggles. This behaviour is the result of living where everything being said is understood. Not being understood is never a reality. When that person moves into an environment of a foreign language and no understanding, then there is no learned structure to support movement in that culture.
The first strategy, many use, is to talk slower, believing that they only reason the person you are talking to you can’t understand you, is because you are talking too fast. With slow speech comes the enunciation of each letter and vowel. I waaannnntt tooooo gooooo toooo the busssss sstttaaatttiooon. At the root of this belief system is the belief that English is really some innate or intuitive language, possessed by all, that can be summoned up with slower exaggerated speech.
If slow speech fails to stir intuitive English then frustration begins to set in but at no time does this person resort to sign language or acting out what they want. The fault of no understanding is transferred completely to the foreign local. They wait for the foreign local to take the next step and offer no clue as to what problem they are trying to communicate. Perhaps at the heart of the inability to act out what is wanted, is the inherited English coldness where using one hands to express oneself is regarded as stuff foreigners do.
The problem is compounded by the fact that the tourist has in no way prepared themselves for the experience of travelling outside an English speaking area. A phrase book is never in hand. No research has been done about how to do something. “We’ll just ask when we get there” appears to be the operating system for travelling.
If they find someone who speaks some English, they then believe that this person has a complete grasp of English but with a funny accent. They then use complete sentences to ask for what they want. The foreign local is faced with a barrage of English words of which perhaps 20% in intelligible and perhaps 25% of those words decipherable. The puzzled look and lack of expected response by the local, frustrates the tourist, even more, so they double their effort to use different words. For some reason focusing on one verb and one noun and inflection such as Bus Station where? instead of Could you please tell me where the local bus station to Queretaro is? is beyond their comprehension.
Frustrated, exasperated and having bought nothing, they decide to retreat to a place where people speak English - San Miguel de Allende and other expat communities such as Ajijic. Learning nothing about their experience in a non English speaking world they then start to communicate with locals. The easiest targets are babies and young children. They have experience with pre verbal younguns. They know BABY TALK. BABY TALK is how you talk to children. Faces get animated. Every little movement of the Baby is applauded, words get shortened, voices get lower, speech gets slower until the COMPLETE IDIOT has emerged to talk to local Mexican Children.
That must be how Mexicans see Tourists and non spanish speaking Expats – as the COMPLETE IDIOT.
Filed under: Language Gangs | Tagged: Complete Idiot Gang
What to do if a local does not respond: Scream. Scream things like, “I know these people speak English and pretending they don’t.” I believe I saw that in the index of SPEAKING ENGLISH TO NON ENGLISH SPEAKERS, but am not really sure. We see this a lot in the city of Guanajuato when they have “San Miguel Day.” This is when vans haul loads of San Miguelian Gringos to the city of Guanajuato at least two days each week for a delightful time of torture and terror. You can tell exactly who these folks are by the $1,500 usd priced smartly co-ordinated outfits and the screaming displays at the local waiters and managers. About four years ago we saw this SMG (San Miguelian Gringo) walking from cafe to cafe screeching in a sing song wail that she just knew they spoke English but were pretending not too. My goodness!
On my way from church this morning, an elderly Mexican couple stopped me to ask for directions. Due to the odd angle of streets in Salem, I quickly ran out of Adequate Spanish directions. I knew I was not giving adequate directions, so I asked if they would like me to show them. I got in their car and rode with them to their destination. I need to work on those special words.
My Uncle Johnny had no trouble speaking Spanish. He had it all figured immediately upon arrival to Mexico. All he did was put an “O” at the end of every English word. “Do-o you-o know-o where-o the-o CAMPO is-o?” The happy recipient of his one Spanish word pointed in the direction of the CAMPO. There is a chance my Tio Juanny was not a COMPLETE idiot.
Thank you for the story. To begin to apologize for Bad Tourists would be a life’s work undone each day by one more experience such as you describe. Perhaps the Good Tourists have an obligation to educate the Bad Tourists no matter how unpleasant it is. Seems unpleasantness is only something the Bad Tourist doesn’t mind.
I see that strange behavior that you mention in a Wal-mart store in Queretaro, but in a nasty tourist way.
The US people were in line, a man in his 40’s and his wife (or special someone) they didn’t speak any spanish at all, and the cashier girl didn’t speak english, they started the slow talk, then higher volume talk, then yelling and insulting, they girl was freaked out, she couldn’t understand them, she called the manager, who didn’t speak english too.
It was chaotic, the girl looked like wanted to cry, the man keep yelling at her, that she was in an “American” store, so she should understand him, it was ugly, until a woman (mexican) arrived and told her (in spanish of course), “No te apures estos pinches gringos tienen que aprender español si quieren estar aquí, que te respete, escribele la cantidad que debe y si le parece” (don’t worry, this morons have to learn spanish if they want to be here, he must respect you, write him how much he ows) and then she (the same woman) told the guy in english “Calm down, you are in Mexico and in Mexico we speak spanish, be respectful and just pay the girl, and learn some spanish”
I agree that is good to learn other language, I’m mexican and I studied english since kinder garden, but still sometimes is difficult to understand a person, more if its yelling and cursing.
A few words, and a handbook of phrases can be very useful everytime you travel.
I like this post very much. My sister is a member of this gang even though she has been in Mexico only once. That was just for a week eight years ago. I picked her up at the Guadalajara airport and, on pulling out of the airport in a taxi, she turned to me and asked: “Are most of the people here Mexican?”
I´m not sure if she was referring to Mexico in general or just Guadalajara, but it really does not matter, does it?
Of course, she spoke to everyone in English.