Is it rude for my colleague to tell me “learn to speak Chinese”?
Actually more than one colleague and my superior has told me so. First time was within the first week of me joining the company, and a superior told me “you need to learn to speak chinese” during dinner with alot of my other colleagues. He did say this in a lighthearted tone, then later on said he was also previously a banana, but has now picked up Chinese as its important for working in sales. My direct supervisor has also told me that “I can always learn” to speak Chinese when she discovered I could only speak English.
Last week this happened again, when I was having lunch with 3 other colleagues. One of the girls asked our colleague from overseas if they could speak Chinese, they said yes. Then she looked at me and went “See, its also time that you learn Chinese”. Which I found borderline rude, so I asked our overseas colleague if majority of people in her country spoke English instead of Chinese, to which she replied yes.
Whats more fustrating is that I applied to this US MNC because I thought it would be a good fit to my background, but turns out everyone is still expecting me to speak Chinese. Training and workshops are fully conducted in English, majority of the time by angmohs even. But my team is majority Chinese, with some Malays.
I grew up in an international school and studied in the UK, so its not that I dont want to learn how to speak Chinese, but there was rarely opportunities for me to do so because it wasnt taught in school. I know I can always go for lessons and pick up the language now, but its hard to find time for that within my work schedule. And frankly, all the rude remarks I gotten on my Chinese speaking abilities have kind of put me off from even wanting to speak the language. I know theres nothing much I can do about it but just wanted to rant a bit.
Edit: Wanted to add that I have never in my life told someone to “learn to speak English”, because I find it inherently rude and dismissive of what someone’s life circumstances might be. So its hard for me to comprehend how someone telling me to learn Chinese can be coming from a good place, especially when most these comments come from colleagues I only met once or twice before.