Re:Cultures where men and women don’t speak the same languag...
by PastelDeNata on Tuesday December 14, 2021 @02:48AM
(#29549280)
> 嗯嗯, was "cute" where a man should have just said 嗯. Apparently, this is the kind of thing that will get you.
Chinese people that I have talked to in Shanghai laughed at me when I said I liked using stickers (表情包)/emoji on WeChat. Apparently, guys are hardly meant to use them and that stickers/emoji are for girls.
Personally, I didn't take heed of their advice nor cared as everybody has their own way of communicating. I use 嗯嗯 stickers whenever I feel like it instead of 嗯. I use 哦 sometimes instead of 嗯 to annoy people and act like I am paying attention.
As an Asian guy, most of my friends/acquaintances in China are female. I have no issues talking to Chinese guys but tend to get on well with females there I guess.
However, back in London where I grew up, almost all of my friends are male. Confused? So am I.. lol.
I have gotten some comments about my Chinese being somewhat feminine. I don't speak, so this is all based on text messaging. And Chinese doesn't have overt gender-of-speaker markers, so the issue persists even if you avoid those.
I particularly remember one person commenting that making the agreement / I'm-listening noise in two syllables, 嗯嗯, was "cute" where a man should have just said 嗯. Apparently, this is the kind of thing that will get you.
For what it's worth, in my face-to-face interactions with Chinese men, I got a lot more criticism for the fact that all of the acquaintances I ever mentioned were female than for my choice of words in the rare case where I spoke in Chinese. But again, speaking Chinese is mostly restricted to text messages for me.