Declan Murphy wrote:
> On Jan 23, 8:40 pm, CL <flot...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Declan Murphy wrote:
> <snip>
>>> I suspect part of the "repeat" is because they are expecting an
>>> obvious foreigner to be speaking to them in a language that definitely
>>> isn't English, and part of the problem is because I don't have a loud
>>> booming, wake up everyone around me kind of voice.
>> I never seem to have this problem.  It's merely a matter of training the
>> flight attendants.  When first confronted by an Asian face in a flight
>> crew uniform, I automatically open in Japanese.
> 
> If I were a non-Japanese speaking native speaker of Cantonese working
> on a Cathay flight that would be bloody irritating. You would receive
> colder than optimal coffee and definitely not have wine and cheese
> brought to your cattle class seat from the pointier end of the flying
> machine.

If you were a non-Japanese native speaker of Cantonese working on a 
Cathay flight the chances of meeting me on my way to or from anywhere 
would be slim to none.  "Cathay" and "good service" seem to be mutually 
exclusive terms in my experience, which includes two instances of being 
dumped off at Narita at 23:30 without a local hotel room or transport 
into Tokyo due to flight delays out of Hong Kong or Taipei.  I generally 
stick to Air China or China Air for North Asia and they have Mandarin 
speakers among their crew when no English or Japanese speaker is to be 
found.  It would seem that we sit in different parts of the plane, too, 
which may make a difference in our respective attitudes.

> I usually look for a name tag and listen for accent. To/from Japan I
> only fly Cathay, JAL and very occasionally Qantas, so it isn't likely
> that I'd encounter a 3rd generation American or somesuch.

Yeah, I do check the name tag before I open my mouth.  I usually fly Air 
France or BA to Yurrup, but both of them are recent clients.  I normally 
am treated politely if not respectfully and the Japanese staff are 
seconded from JAL or ANA.  I much prefer flying in to CDG or AMS ... or 
even Frankfurt on Lufthansa ... and taking the train or ferry to the 
Perfidious Isle nowadays.  The asshole factor at Continental airports 
and British ports is much lower than Heathrow or Gatwick but I have 
found that the Spaniards make a special exception at Malaga so that all 
native English speakers are treated with equal contempt regardless of 
country of origin.

My wife is ex-JAL and, because she is a nearly native-level English 
speaker without an American accent, was asked to be in the first group 
of staff seconded to Quantas.  When we fly that airline, she still 
follows the convention of not eating anything that is handed her by a 
steward with bandages on his fingers and wiping down everything with 
alcohol wipes.  (According to the female staff, all stewards are gay and 
most are HIV+.)

>> Or, maybe I'm just a bigger dickhead than I realize ...
> 
> Veritas vos liberabit!

No bonus points for that public school stuff.

-- 
CL