To think this shop assistant was being xenophobic?

[Birdylade]

I was in my local charity shop last week and there was a young foreign guy buying something but trying to explain to the shop assistant he would like to bring it back if it didn't work. After he left she said loudly (shop full of people) that there were so many of 'them' nowadays and the country is a mess and no one speaks English. The younger woman working with her then chipped in that they shouldn't be allowed in if they couldn't speak English... I actually couldn't believe they were being so rude.

While I think it's important to learn the language of the country you live in I don't expect every foreigner to be fluent in English and think this woman was being rude and unreasonable.

If immigrants made as little effort as most Brits abroad we'd be fucked, linguistically speaking.

Minimisschief - would these Chinese people you speak of be similar to some Brits who live in Spain and never learn any Spanish? I have a fair few friends who live in Spain and the majority of people they know don't know more than hello!
My parents came here from another country and made a very big effort to learn the language - if you live somewhere else you should learn the language of course but yes, the woman was being very unfair and stupid - then was doing the best he could. Report her.

My parents have lived in several countries and they, along with my siblings, have learnt all the languages. Not to fluent, but enough to get by. So that's Spanish, Arabic, and French. They start learning after they've been there a month. I personally feel that if you move to another country, you should learn the language.

That being said, that was really rude of the workers

The workers were rude.

The British are not a race.

Could you not have just shamed the assistants in front of the shop full of people??

She says "there are so many of them these days"

You say "Yes, didn't he do well to make himself understood, I know I could not do so well out of my own country"

The assistants were horrible.

Being rude about foreigners is not confined to British people.

Like Catsmamma said you could have pulled them up on it at the time.

Complaining here to people who'd most likely agree with you hasn't solved their attitude.

Double- i will challange any negative/discriminatory stereotypical statements directed at any group.

If you read my post, i had a similar incident in a bus station,but dealt with it there and then, as i always do, i don't walk away and leave discrimination, unchallanged, in any form.

That's how i have lived my life and always will. If the OP had of done so, the shop assistants might of learnt something, as it happened, nothing has changed.

it was puds who implied that 'british' people are badly behaved, i guess birds was referring to this, and i agree with her. often seems ok to slag british people off on here, oh so very right on. and i agree with the OP too, the shop assistants were very rude

That is a horrible thing to say. He was trying to explain what he wanted in English, however rudimentary it might have been unlike the many British expats who live in the "Costas" and cannot speak a word of Spanish...I wonder what they would think of them.

another point thecook is your books could have gone to the local library, a school or even a branch of scope in an area they would sell

ps yanbu op - appalling behaviour