The Chinese girl who does not speak a word of English and whom I tried to communicate with by writing Chinese characters (and dismally failed) turned to be a chatterbox! She is very talkative and speaks to everyone. Everyone listened to her with big smile and nods! It looks as if everyone understood what the girls said. But they came to me after the girl had left and told me that they could not understand what she said at all. Sooo-oh funny!
I went to the induction to the Gym today. Every year, they require users to sign a medical consent afresh. There were two Asian older men in the session. Both look to me Chinese but it seems that they came from different countries since they did not speak each other. The medical consent form does not have a translation. Those two men do not speak English at all. So the trainer started trying to translate it into kind of a sign language (?!). I should not have laughed but I could not resist. Imagine the trainer try to convey the meaning of questions such as: 'Do you have high blood pressure?'; 'Do you have high cholesterol?'; 'Do you have diabetes?'. That's impossible!!!
One of the men telephoned to his friend who will be able to help him. So he will submit the form later. Another man simply gave up and left. We even could not figure out what his language was. I feel sorry for the man. He might be offended because I (and others) laughed so much, not at him but at the trainer's gesture. I am considering to fill in a complaint form alleging racial discrimination based on the Centre's failure to provide a translation, if it helps him... Probably too late...