I jumped in a taxi recently and heard the above sentence. Yeah, I know, surprise, surprise, right?
You can picture the scene - a funky beat up taxi, lots of artifacts dangling from the rear-view mirror, a guy with a name you can't pronounce and you think, "learn the language or go home, buddy!"
The funny thing is, these words weren't spoken to me by a taxi driver in the USA but by a local taxi driver in China!
Think about it. Here is a dude making the equivalent of US$300/month and he is apologizing to me for not speaking English when I am the foreigner in his country!
Was he pissed off that I was butchering his 3,000 year old language?Nope, he smiled and apologized for not knowing English.But, he is studying it every day like so many of his countrymen!
That is the attitude that will drive China into the future. The Chinese are committed to studying the best America has to offer and learning the skills necessary to make them a global power, whether it is speaking English or engineering a faster semiconductor.
For the most part, they actually appreciate having foreigners in their country to help drive them along the "Super-Growth Expressway" faster than the average Shanghai taxi driver can fly through a yellow/red light on the wrong side of the road!
I think we can all learn a valuable lesson from the attitude of my Shanghai cabbie!
Are you receptive to new and better ways of doing things?To learning from other people and cultures?To moving forward at the speed of a Shanghai taxi?Or do we just wish things would stay the same and they would just "go home"?
Let me know what you think below - go on, leave a comment!