After finishing my summer program, I could not wait to go to Chinatown in San Francisco to experience my long-lost culture and Chinese food. However, while going through the Stockton Tunnel, I saw a China I had never seen. The watery sunshine rested on the walls in blurred and desultory gleam. Streets were narrow, steep and empty with homeless people begging for money. Words on billboards were written in traditional Chinese characters with a typesetting and style from the 1920s. Grocers stood at street corners selling southern vegetables and fruits. Grandmas sat on vegetable piles chatting with customers in fluent Cantonese that I could hardly understand. I went into a supermarket decorated with dust to buy snacks and juice. Everything went well until I started talking with the cashier in Mandarin with a strong Beijing accent. She opened her eyes wide in mock disbelief and then narrowed her eyes scornfully at me. I tried several more times at grocery stores, restaurants, and newsstands and observed what happened to other Mandarin-speaking customers when they started talking. Storeowners, employees and even other Cantonese customers reacted the same way. It seemed that they were so surprised to see a Mandarin-speaking customer. “They are rude,” a Mandarin-speaking fellow standing next to me whispered. With no doubt, they were. But why had they reacted this way?

To explain why Cantonese-speaking sellers treated Mandarin-speaking customer in a rude way, it is necessary to mention stereotypes against Mandarin-speaking people and cultural perspective Cantonese-speaking people embrace. Normally, people speaking mandarin, especially with northern accent, are considered as mainlanders. Mainlanders always receive negative feedback when they travel all around the world, due to inappropriate behaviors and cultural misunderstanding conducted and kept by some mainland tourists. Though those people who behave inappropriately and create cultural misunderstanding are not the majority of tourist population, they represent the mainland and the mainland’s culture. Thus, they contribute to the forming of stereotypes against mainland people, who innocently considered as people lacking civic virtue, morality and quality. Moreover, most people speaking Cantonese are from Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macau, and foreign countries such as Malaysia and Singapore. Some Chinese immigrants in foreign countries are Cantonese speakers as well. The Cantonese-speaking populations have cultural protectionism on tradition, language, food, life style, and other features that can distinguish them from other culture groups. However, exposed to mainland’s tolerant and open culture, Cantonese-speaking people in Guangzhou don’t have problem in the interaction with people from other provinces. However, because of cultural misunderstanding, less knowledge of the mainland, and stereotype, people in Hong Kong always have conflicts with their country fellows from the mainland. Therefore, Hong Kong receives negative feedbacks as a tourism destination from most of the mainland visitors. While talking with my friends studying overseas, I realize that I am not the only person feel alienated in Chinatown as a Mandarin speaker in Chinatown overseas dominated by Cantonese-speaking immigrants. As we concluded, stereotypes and cultural protectionism can be factors contributing to Cantonese-speaking sellers unfriendly attitude.

Different from people from Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macau, and other places in the world that are congested with Cantonese-speaking people, San Francisco Chinatown has its own historical and cultural background. People there view themselves as Sanfranciscan and Chinese American growing up in special regional culture. San Francisco Chinatown is created by racism. Intense anti-Chinese attacks and the Exclusion Act of 1882 make Chinese immigrants dwelling together and create barriers to their assimilation to American culture. Moreover, Chinese immigrants can hardly live and work outside Chinatown due to housing and labor discrimination. After hundred-year-long “isolation”, San Francisco Chinatown develops unique culture differentiating it from American, Chinese, and even original Cantonese culture. People in San Francisco Chinatown may have even less knowledge than Hong Kong people on the mainland China. As I learn, some people in San Francisco Chinatown are monolingual Cantonese speakers. With no doubt, based on their stereotypes, cultural protectionism, even less knowledge on China, and national identity, Cantonese-speaking sellers in San Francisco Chinatown treat Mandarin-speaking customers as aliens in a rude way.

However, does the Cantonese-speaking sellers’ attitude the only reason result to my unpleased experience in San Francisco Chinatown? Same like Cantonese-speaking people in San Francisco Chinatown, pride in Beijing culture and less knowledge in San Francisco Chinatown history and culture made me feel uncomfortable when communicated with them and have bias on Cantonese-speaking sellers there. Moreover, wrong expectation on Chinese Americans made my feeling even worse. Born and growing up in Beijing, I am proud of my Beijing culture. Beijing is the beloved hometown for all Beijingers. Beijing is capital city of China for more than 800 hundred years having a unique temperament which results in its combination of royal and folk culture. Beijing is a developed international city having convenient transportation network, living condition, and leisure living style. Climbing to the top of the hill behind the Forbidden City, you can see a nice blend of traditional and modern. Lush poplar trees surround traditional courtyard houses. Hutongs, alleys in Beijing, divide the city into a chessboard. Hutongs extend to wide roads decorated by modern buildings designed by famous architects around the world. Wherever they live, courtyard houses or modern apartments, people treat each other friendly and treat foreigners with hospitality. Morality and civic virtue are highly valued in Beijing culture. Inclusiveness and virtue, two voted Beijing spirits, provide an environment where everyone can live with dignity and respect from others. Therefore, when the pride I have as a Beijinger and the prejudice the Cantonese-speaking sellers clash together, conflicts occur. I even thought and reacted in a self-defensive way while encountering the Cantonese speakers in San Francisco Chinatown. Languages we used were tools that distinguished us. Cultures and concepts behind languages were what created conflicts and misunderstanding. Before the first time I went to San Francisco Chinatown, I had no idea of its history and culture. Same like some Chinese people, I viewed Chinese Americans as my fellow citizens sharing same culture. However, I was just self-assertion and wrongly considered that those Chinese Americans would treat me with hospitality as meeting compatriots. Thus, my experience and feeling of the Chinatown in San Francisco became even worse.

Exposed to MIIS’s diverse culture and accessing to intercultural competence classes, I gradually learn how to think in the position of other cultures and actively study on other cultures. The secret is to develop tolerance and patience. Therefore, we can have openness to other cultures and languages. At the same time, we can have much better experience while being in a foreign culture. I went to San Francisco to see the Chinese New Year Parade last weekend. Preparing for my trip, I downloaded application teaching Cantonese in my phone and did research on San Francisco’s history and its Chinatown’s history. When I was in San Francisco this time, though I still received Cantonese speakers’ prejudice, I tried to understand their hardship and reasons behind their attitude. I found that I became less likely to be irritated and influenced. At the same time, I thought much highly of the tolerance among people.