Never Judge By Appearance: A Salutary Chinese Tale
At the final dinner of an international conference, an American delegate turned to the Chinese delegate sitting next to him, pointed to the soup and asked somewhat condescendingly, 'Likee soupee?'
The Chinese gentlemen nodded eagerly.
A little later, it was 'Likee fishee?' and 'Likee meatee?' and 'Likee fruitee?' and always the response was an affable nod.
At the end of the dinner the chairman of the conference introduced the guest speaker of the evening: none other than the Chinese gentleman who delivered a penetrating, witty discourse in impeccable English, much to the astonishment of his American neighbour.
When the speech was over, the speaker turned to his neighbour and with a mischievous twinkle in his eye asked, 'Likee speechee?'
As the saying goes: "Never judge a book by its cover".
Source: Funny Chinese Stories
I've heard a similar story: a man was giving a lecture in Spanish about Shakespeare and mentioning him "sakespeare" all the time (with a strong Spanish accent) provoking laughs in the audience. Then lecturer replied: I notice that you are familiar with English so then I will continue my speech in full English and surprisingly so he did!!!
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