Embarassing moments in speaking Chinese in foreign land (#166, Topic L)

With Confucius Institutes being established around the world (#165), speaking Chinese to your companion in public in foreign land may produce unexpected results or embarrassments. An essay in The Washington China Post 3/3/06 has several amusing incidents. One, a female Chinese student in Paris, seeing a black person walking toward her, said to her companion: "She is so dark." Hearing this, the Parisienne responded: "You are so pale." Two, an Indian student was once asked: "I heard that you can speak Chinese. Is this so?" And he answered, in fluent Chinese: "Are you sick? Can't you see that I am an Indian?"; with that, he left. Three, the essay's author, while in Frankfurt's subway, said to his companion: "That fellow's legs are so long." The Frankfurter retorted: "How tall are you?" They began to converse in Chinese. And the Frankfurter then commented: "You Chinese are not afraid of the heaven, nor of the earth, except barbarians speaking in Chinese," which drew a laugh. Upon leaving, the Frankfurter even bid them farewell in Shanghai dialect "再會". Four, a friend of the essayist, at an airport in USA, commented on an obese Euro-American female passenger to his companion: "I wonder what food did she eat that made her so fat." Turning her back, she answered, in Shanghai dialect: "吃飯啊! [I ate Rice, of course]" Perhaps I need to learn another language?