Here’s a situation likely to be familiar to Chinese-speaking foreigners in China. You walk into a bar, cafe, or shop in a reasonably fashionable district of a big city. The guy or girl behind the counter greets you with a ‘hello!’. You reply in Chinese. They reply in English. You reply again in Chinese, attempting to establish your ability in the language. They reply again in English, doing the same. You get annoyed, and say ‘I speak Chinese’ in Chinese. Without flinching, they carry on in their dogged attempt to speak your language with you.
This situation happens, I think, for two reasons. One is that those laowai who have taken the time to learn Chinese at a decent level feel a sense of pride in their ability and want to use it as much as possible. Having invested much in learning the language, they don’t want to sound like just any other fresh-off-the-boat foreigner in the country. They’re in China, darnit, and they want to speak Chinese.
