It's a bit similar to what I experience here in Taiwan (I'm a westerner). When I am out and about, people tend to speak English to me. When I first arrived five years ago I would get annoyed, because I was here to learn and practice my Chinese, and so I would always use Chinese to answer them. Thus, sometimes, our conversations would be in two languages, the Taiwanese would be speaking English to me (because they wanted to practice their English) and I would be speaking Chinese to them (because I wanted to practice Chinese). After being here a while, I have now changed my approach. If someone speaks English to me, I answer in English - let them practice. It's funny though when they make the assumption that I can't speak Chinese. When they *state* (not ask) "So, you don't speak Chinese", I usually answer in English still "Actually, I speak it fluently". They usually don't know what to say to that :P Some will switch to Chinese, while some stick with English. So over the years I've finally relaxed a bit and don't get offended any more when people go straight to English. I mean, it's quite common that westerners *don't* speak Mandarin (or at least not well), so no matter. Plus, I don't feel I need to prove anything anymore, so it's all good :) --

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