Language Barrier

Taiwan oh Taiwan......! Although I lived here for years but my body physical still startled when the weather changed drastically. The winter hit me again, and I caught a cold. These days recent is rainy days, close a whole week the rain falls dripping. Taiwan has four seasons and it's quite different from my own country. In Indonesia we only have two season span the year, which are rainy season and dry season. Almost along the years we such have the same temperatures.

As a rainy day today, I can barely go out for neither jogging or do other exercise like I had done in every morning. As a result for all this rain, I just stay inside my lovely house. It's almost 9 o'clock, after I finished my breakfast I had watched TV. The sound of rain falls on the roof disturbed my auditory, I couldn't watch the TV seriously. Thereafter I'm spinning around my room like intoxicated, until involuntarily I compelled to open my room's window.

The rain still dripping, while from a distance I looked at a couple under the rain quarreling. Be careful I stared  them, they are my neighbor. His name is Chang Chao Bo but people only called him Chang according his surname. In Taiwan and other Chinese people always summoned their surname. Mr. Chang is married a Vietnamese girl, her name is Kim Cuc, they have been married for two years.

I've heard they always fighting due to misunderstanding. Two years is not enough for Kim Cuc to completely understand Chinese. Unfortunately, Mr. Chang is such impatient person, so that when they argued a small thing he always instantly furious, worse yet sometimes he beats his wife.

In the other hand, Kim Cuc also such a selfish woman even very cynic. When her husband got angry because he didn't understand what Kim Cuc talking about, she always went to her friend's house and ignored her husband instead. She has bad tempers.

Once a while, Mr. Chang ordered a tablespoon and she gave him some sugar instead. ''How can I eat my soup with sugar,'' Mr. Chang pitched fierce. ''You such a gig,'' answered Kim Cuc. Eagerly Kim Cuc put the sugar into her husband's soup. Wide eyes Mr. Chang looked what his wife had done. ''You are really insane, I will take you go to the psychosis doctor then,'' said Mr. Chang. ''I'm not mad, you are crazy not me,'' Kim Cuc yelled and left her husband alone.

I myself experienced, it's really difficult to distinguish Chinese accent words. Sugar in Chinese called 糖 (Tang) and tablespoon is 湯匙 (Tang Chi). If you didn't pay attention when Chinese people talk to you, maybe you will often misunderstand what they meant. One word has four different tones (First tones, Second tones, Third tones and Fourth tones). Like the pronunciation ''Tang'' it's also could be mean ''Lie Down'' (躺=Tang) and ''Hot'' (燙=Tang).

I thought it's a big problem among foreign brides in Taiwan, even though the government provided them a free Chinese language course but still some of them hard to can speak Chinese. By the way when we want to marry people from others countries, it's important to learn their language first to avoid misunderstandings. Don't let language barriers will alleviate the happiness in the family.
How about you? Are you ready to marry people who speak different languages?