Quote:
Originally Posted by Mean Mr. Mustard
Odd question are there some cultures where talking louder is more appropriate - I know at the fitness centre there are some gentlemen from South-East Asia who go to the gym at roughly the same time and have a sauna at the same time - and boy they are loud, even in having a conversation with each other. I actually have noticed this in a few different people who had immigrated from south-east Asia, so I could never figure out if it was a cultural thing or if it is a figment of my imagination.
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Absolutely. Chinese is one of them, and Shanghainese is even more magnified. When you don't know what someone is saying it often sounds like an argument with raised voices compared to a typical English conversation. I've often thought that my wife and her mother were having a fight when they've been speaking Shanghainese on the phone, but in reality they're just talking about the most mundane things.
A lot of foreigners are bothered by this in China, but that's just the way a lot of people speak here. Funnily enough, when multilingual people switch from Shanghainese to Mandarin they seem to get a bit quieter, then when switching from Mandarin to English become quieter still. It's interesting.