Do you speak mandarin?

While walking along Orchard Road some days back, my friend and I were approached by a Chinese couple, touring the Dhoby Ghaut area. They seemed puzzled after looking at the map and were starting to look around. As my friend and I were the only few people there, we expected them to approach us to ask for directions, which they did.

However, their first question (in English) caught us off-guard:

“Do you speak Chinese???”

That coming from a Chinese couple, speaking to us (both Chinese) seems quite ironic.

In yesteryear, one would expect that the first thing tourists would probably ask when finding help is “Do You Speak English”? I guess that, to the international community, our English language speaking ability is more recognized than our Mandarin speaking ability.