Olympics, the world and language

So, it's pouring outside and I'm watching the tail end of the men's marathon of the Beijing Olympics on TV.

When the Kenyan runner Samuel Wansiru crossed the finish line, he was interviewed by the Japanese media. What surprised me was that the interviewer asked all his questions in Japanese. And what surprised me even more was that the marathon winner responded in Japanese!!!

I thought that was so cool! Of course, it just reminded me that I have prejudices about how people should look in relation to the language they speak or can speak. This whole thing surprised and impressed me only because he was a black African from Kenya who can speak a language of a country that was in an entirely different continent thousands of miles away.

This brings me back to an experience I had a couple of weeks ago when I returned home to the Bay Area. One of my friends and I wanted the tourist experience of being in SF and we decided to rent bicycles to cross the Golden Gate Bridge.

We were at the bike rental and one of the employees were explaining the rules with bikes in a rather thick European accent. After a couple of seconds, my friend turns to me and says, "huh?" signifying that she didn't quite hear what he was saying. Since I didn't understand, I only shrugged in response.

Then, this lady (from Australia, I think) comes up behind me and says, "Don't worry, I don't even understand and I speak English!"

In a way, that was probably a bit on the offensive side with her thinking that I didn't speak English just because I looked Asian...but given the circumstances, I just found it amusing.

We all have assumptions about people, don't we?