ChineseS..

I recently met a few Chinese students who are from the mainland China. As China is such a big piece of land, there are 64 different dialects in Chinese. These students are from different parts of China, so they can speak different local dialects, and the common one, the Mandarin (the official dialect of Chinese).

I can speak two dialects, the Cantonese and the Mandarin (I believed). So, I spoke to them in Mandarin. They were giggling as soon as I talked.. Well, I immediately understood what was taking place there... I'm not from the mainland China but HK... Hong Kong belonged to British for more than 100 years as a colony. Most people didn't have to study Mandarin in school, so did I. Therefore, the Mandarin of Hong Kong people is somewhat weird to most of the chinese who went to school in China.

So, I asked what is the difference between my Mandarin and their Mandarin. They told me some of the phonetic stuffs of Mandarin while I had no clue of what the hell it is...
After a while, I gave up and just kept speaking in my own Mandarin. It is fine to me and to them as long as we can communicate.

When they talked to each other, I found that they have some colloquials that I had never heard of (I can't even get a slightest clue of what they said), and sounded utterly interesting. As I was intrigued, I asked them to teach me more about their slangs over the lunch. We ended up had a little language exchange since we can speak in different dialects.

While I have been so keen on learning the foreign cultures in different countries, it is really surprising and fun to learn my own language when it comes out like a totally new subject.