The other day, I visited the law library. The security guard at the entrance seemed to be in a friendly mood. "Are you a good lawyer?" he smirked as my laptop and papers went through the security scanner.
"Um, I guess," I said.
"You guess?"
"I hope I will be, I'm sort of new," I replied.
He nodded and smiled at me and peppered me with a few other questions. I nodded and smiled back and answered his inane questions as my stuff slowly made its way on the conveyer belt.
"You know, you speak English pretty good."
I looked at him. "Excuse me?"
"Yeah you speak English good," he said approvingly. "What are you? Yellow?"
"Yes, yes I am," admittedly disappointed he correctly guessed my ethnicity. He sat there looking pretty pleased with himself. "And do most Asian attorneys you see not speak English 'good'?" I asked.
"Nope," he said, "they all have an accent or somethin'."
"Oh I see." I didn't quite know what to say. He was smiling and nodding the whole time. I think he thought praising my English skills was an actual compliment to me. I took my stuff, laughed awkwardly, and said "good bye" as I went along my way.
I thought about what the guy said. Virtually every Asian American attorney I knew could speak English 'good.' What the hell was he talking about?
It reminded me of some other time when some guy from a college class had said to me, "Wow I'm surprised you don't have an accent."
"What are you talking about? I was born and raised in America," I had said.
"Yeah but your parents are immigrants. I'm surprised you didn't get an accent from them. You speak English good."
"Um. Okay."
I guess I speak English good.
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3 comments:
People always tell me they're surprised that I don't have an accent. Actually, some asian canadians I know, despite having been born and raised in Canada, do in fact speak english with a bit of an accent - a Chinese one or Philippino one, for instance. Then again, their friends are mostly asian like them so that's probably why...
I got told I spoke good English not too long ago. They guy seemed genuinely surprised though. It may have something to do with the ESL school nearby.
i know that you know that you speak english well.
props for not mentioning that both of the guys in your story do not.
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