Imagine being a kid who lives in an English speaking country, and your mom decides it would be good for you to go to school in a country that speaks a different language for awhile.

What would you do if the kids in that country made fun of you for not speaking the language very well?

In this story, one kid is in that exact situation, so he explodes in English. The location makes the outburst even worse.

Keep reading to see how the teacher and mom reacted to the conflict.

Was told if I couldnt speak Mandarin then I shouldn’t. So I exploded in English.

This happened a few years ago back in grade 5.

For context, I had taken a mini trip to Taiwan for 6 months at the end of grade 5. I was 11 and I was a very timid kid and was always doing well in school.

My mom decided what a great idea it was to have me learn in Taiwan for a while so we visited for a total of 6 months.

The kids were not kind.

We lived in a super rural area. Each grade consisted of a single class.

I was made fun of constantly, being called “foreigner” and “Canadian” in mandarin.

It hurt a lot but I didn’t say anything cause I had trouble speaking mandarin.

Fast forward about a month and we’re doing regular class work. At this point, everyone had to learn in a nearby temple due to the school going under construction.

One girl pushed OP too far.

One of the girls who kept getting on my nerves and made a comment that sent me over edge. I had trouble doing any subject that wasn’t math or English and she emphasized on that.

She said, “You can’t even speak mandarin. Are you dumb or something? Don’t speak mandarin if you don’t know what you’re saying!”

To say the least I got royally mad. No hyperbole, I started screaming at her in only English (and a lot of profanity) how dumb she was for thinking that I would be able to learn mandarin without practicing it.

I also went on about how English was far superior and bunch of other things a delusional 11-year-old would think.

The location made it even worse.

Keep in mind that we’re in a TEMPLE. A place for peaceful things to happen.

Every class heard me (it was a small school of something around 200 kids) and 11-year-old me continued this up for about half an hour before my mom came to calm me down.

The teacher was at a loss for what to do and my mom had to do some serious mediating.

Luckily, my friend backed me up about the situation and my teacher also vouched for me considering I had barely spoken a word in class on a day to day basis.

The girl was the only one who was punished.

The girl had a strong word spoken to her about treating other kids with respect (ironic considering what I did) and, I’m not even kidding, she almost got beat with a stick. Asians are crazy.

It must have been weird for them. A random foreign kid starts screaming for half an hour without explanation in full blown English about how dumb this girl was.

The only thing they knew I was doing was swearing because those were the only words they could reasonably comprehend.

Saying the girl’s words back to her probably felt really satisfying.

For the rest of the time I was there, I would only speak to that girl in English.

Everytime she would look at me confused, and I would tell her the exact same thing.

“You don’t understand English? Are you dumb or something?”

I was a jerk but no regrets.

Just because you don’t speak every language doesn’t make you stupid. I think it might’ve been a bad idea for OP’s mom to enroll her child in school in a foreign country though. It doesn’t sound like it was a good experience for anyone.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

One person blames “island people syndrome.”

This is good advice.

Another person shares their memories of students in school who didn’t speak perfect English.

This would be funny!

Don’t insult someone unless you want them to insult you back.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.