Caused a scene in a cafe today. Now wondering if we were unreasonable

[pennytoffees]

I'll start off by saying I'm welsh, born and bred and speak the language as does my entire family.

We visited (my mother and I) a local cafe today and had such an awful experience. We haven't been there in years but don't remember it being that bad. We don't sound welsh and spoke to them in English so they obviously assumed that we were tourists. They were very cold towards us.

Anyway, we placed our order and another staff member brought the food over to us. We asked for some sauces to which she replied "go and ask her" and then pointed to the woman at the till. There was a queue and we didn't want the food to go cold so asked her if she could get us some. She gave me a filthy look but reluctantly handed them over. I just want to add that at no point did she say that the sauces cost extra so we just presumed that they were free like most cafes/restaurants. It turns out that they weren't (to be honest I think it's pretty greedy charging customers for sachets of sauce when they've spent £14 on a meal and I don't know any other local businesses that do it but thats another argument). We would have paid with no issues had she explained that to us.

The main issue is that she came over to a couple sat behind us and started talking about us in Welsh thinking that we didn't understand. Funnily enough they asked for some sauces and she gave them for free but when we asked it was an issue. The only difference is they were clearly locals. At this point we'd had enough so I asked to speak with the manager and she asked me "why, is there a problem?". I said "yes but I'm not discussing it with you". Anyway, he came over and I explained what had happened. She was on the other side of the counter and came over and said "I'm sorry, I wasn't talking about you". She wasn't close enough to hear us talking so obviously knew what she had done wrong and was just trying to cover her tracks.

He apologised and we left it at that, didn't even finish our food as we felt so uncomfortable. To be honest I don't think he knew what to do but after reading the reviews online, it's clearly a regular occurrence and he doesn't care how his staff behaves or treats customers. It was embarrassing as everyone was looking at us. We don't like confrontation or causing trouble but felt we had to confront her. I believe we would have been treated differently had they known we were welsh. I was actually embarrassed to be welsh to be honest. They forget it's the tourists keeping them in business.

AIBU? Would you have confronted her or just walked away?

It’s clear from this thread that some English people hate Welsh people and are uncomfortable with hearing them speak a British language that they don’t understand.
This is a really bizarre take on the thread! Read the OP. It's an incident where someone was badly treated because the waitress thought (wrongly) that they were not Welsh. That's appalling, and no-one should be excusing it.

I was responding to the many many posters who have claimed that people in Wales speaking English in shops and pubs switch to Welsh when English people come in.

My IL's own a holiday home in North Wales and during covid the locals put up signs on the entrance to the village saying "fuck off English" etc. When my IL's went down to check on their house (when it was allowed) they were told (threatened) to leave and that there'd been loads of trouble/police being called etc. (obviously they are not all like this but the few give the many a bad reputation)

Because they were breaking Covid rules? This was a problem all over the UK, people rushing to their rural bolt holes when they shouldn’t have been going anywhere.

The waitress said to her friend that OP thought the sauce was free. Im not sure if I would class that as appalling if I’m honest. Possibly the waitress would have said it in English (if chatting to an English speaking friend) because it’s not really an offensive thing to say. But so happens that this friend of hers and her converse in Welsh.

saying something in Welsh doesn’t automatically
mean it’s rude. Soooo many English people seem to think people are speaking Welsh deliberately to snub them or be rude. Maybe on the odd occasion but it would be very rare- people flatter themselves way too much to think Welsh people are speaking about them every time they speak Welsh 😂

No. Reread my post. They were perfectly entitled to go down when they did.

Unfortunately some locals were too thick/in a "pitchfork" mindset to accept this.

Sorry misread your post. But holiday/second homes in rural/seaside areas are problematic all over the uk. Your parents would have been paying a lot more in council tax too if they hadn’t sold.

I personally experienced the switching to Welsh myself whilst in a village shop in North Wales 45 years ago.

I have very recently learnt from a thread on MN that Welsh people switch from English to Welsh all the time; it's how they converse. If I hadn't read the thread on MN I would be non the wiser

So we're not bloody arrogant just uninformed

So perhaps think of some way of informing us all

If it were just about breaking Covid rules then why did they say “fuck off English” and not “fuck off 2nd home owners”? Surely Welsh 2nd homeowners would also be in the wrong? Why just target the English?

No problem!

Yes, that's another reason they sold - but the selling up/lack of tourism is problematic for locals too. I believe they're charging tourism tax now also which will surely only exacerbate the situation. My IL's spent a lot of time there and spent a lot of money locally. Obviously a lot of people who were renting out their houses as holiday let's are now leaving possibly taking that tourist pound away. You have to get special planning permission now and jump through hoops to be allowed to rent out property as holiday let's. But not enough people want to live there full time.
Hopefully it will all resolve itself but I don't think the houses that are being sold will be bought by locals as even the ones that were sold very cheaply as affordable housing recently took years to sell. My IL's are very lucky to have got out when they did as properties there are just stagnant right now. It's a shame as we had many happy times there.

Speak for yourself!

I have family in North Wales. Our heritage is Welsh and some branches of the family have remained there but some were born in England so some speak Welsh and others English as their first language.

We have had issues like this quite a few times, sadly. Grandad used to take a strange pleasure in playing the Englishman then turning to add a pertinent comment to their conversation in Welsh just as we were leaving. Some faces were a picture!

You really have lost the marble. You are doing exactly what you say the English are doing in saying this whole post is very much a gotcha. Paranoid much?

I live in North West Wales , I'm English but I have learned Welsh to a point where I can understand everything but my speech isn't fluent.
Speaking Welsh in Wales is not a form of passive aggression as someone suggested above. It isn't true that people switch to speaking Welsh when you enter a pub or restaurant either, they were speaking Welsh in the first place as it's their first language.
I worked in the NHS in Bangor for a long time. A lot of the day to day conversation was in Welsh but there was constant switching from Welsh to English and people did change to English if they noticed someone was being left out.
It takes a while to be accepted if you move into a Welsh village.
I have found most people to be as friendly as anywhere else but it can't be denied that there is some anti-English sentiment, often linked to history. Some people act as if all English people are aristocratic oppressors.
Incidents like the one OP described do happen. It happened in a bank to a friend of mine who was originally from Penmachno but had lived in Dorset and spoke English like a middle class Southern English person . Basically someone serving her said "Let the old bag wait" or similar in Welsh and was mortified when she asked to speak to a supervisor in Welsh.
It can be like moving to a rather insular village with the additional historical baggage (the English ruling class were very oppressive in the past) and a language barrier.
It's complex though and most people just accept you as you are.
I don't think OP made too much fuss, rudeness isn't acceptable and you can't hold a tourist buying a cup of tea responsible for past oppression of Welsh language and culture.

I find it really strange that you're born and bred in north Wales and speak the language yet didn't do so in the cafe. North Wales is an area where they're very patriotic about keeping the language.
You don't actually know that the other people didn't pay for their sauces they might have paid and not picked them up.

Did you have the conversation with the manager in Welsh?
I have family (in laws) who live on Anglesey. I've never heard anybody from the area say in Anglesey. It was actually one of the first things I noticed because I would have said in rather than on. But they all say on.
My in laws all speak Welsh and switch to English if I'm around. I'm trying to learn a bit. It's hard but I'm doing a bit.
Something about this post just doesn't ring true

I'm not from the UK, so don't know the hostilities between different nationalities, but sh*tty people exist everywhere and they are not worth your energy.

I've never heard anybody from the area say in Anglesey. It was actually one of the first things I noticed because I would have said in rather than on.

You could probably hammer throw a person across the strait but no person from N Wales would dare say ‘in Anglesey’. It’s an island, you go on one not in and everyone in the local area knows this. It’s a very small detail but something that made me go 🤨.

Edit: sorry @Cosyblankets I did mean to quote your post in full but fat fingers obviously!

Straw man, straw man!!!

No - it's not about the language thing. I've never experienced the 'switch to Welsh when an English person appears' situation, but I believe others who say they have. Maybe Welsh-speakers to this, maybe they don't.

That's not the point. What the OP is complaining about is the hostility based on a (in this case, mistaken - but that's beside the point too) assumption about their nationality. It's not OK to be mean to someone because of their nationality alone.

I've not noticed the language issue - but I have noticed the side-eye, the switch from a welcoming smile to a hard expression, the eye-roll, when I've spoken in a cafe of shop. It wouldn't be acceptable if it was done to someone of a different race -it would rightly be called out. It's not OK to treat people badly because of their nationality.

I’m not going to think of a way to inform all English people that I might speak a bit of English into my Welsh when I talk, no. I don’t need to justify how I speak my own language thanks. If people randomly assume I’m talking about them when I’m talking my own language, perhaps they need to address their own insecurities

Okay but then don't blame people and call them arrogant when they don't understand

I don’t know what straw man means.

the waitress in question said that op thought the sauce was free. Which OP had. So she was hardly mean to OP based on OPs nationality. OP has just decided this was the case. I don’t think saying (to a fellow first language Welsh friend) ‘they thought the sauce was free’ is all that mean and xenophobic personally but maybe I’m just less easily offended.

It’s arrogant for people to assume that Welsh people are talking about you just because they’re speaking Welsh. It’s not hard to grasp

I don't think many people assume Welsh people are talking about them, they just assume Welsh people don't like English people and that's why they talk in Welsh

Anyway I know different now so I don't assume anything

That's not the point. What the OP is complaining about is the hostility based on a (in this case, mistaken - but that's beside the point too) assumption about their nationality. It's not OK to be mean to someone because of their nationality alone.

There wasn’t hostility based on their presumed nationality though, certainly nothing suggests the waitress was pissed off purely on the bases of assuming they were English. The op hasn’t said the waitress had said anything about ‘bloody Sais coming over here, freeloading our Heinz’. There was cross communication about the sauces, the waitress obviously (and wrongly) blew off steam to some regulars about customers who didn’t want to get up and sort it themselves.She might have been having a bad day and it resulted in poorer customer service - anyone who’s worked in service has shirty or less helpful and left a customer feeling undervalued at times.

What happened in the op was not a Welsh hating English issue. It was someone having a moan within earshot of the customer issue which has now descended into the usual ‘Welsh is used only for the forces of evil’ discussion.

You’ve worded it so much better than me! I agree with all of this

I hate this sort of thing - 'This is a LOCAL cafe for LOCAL people' attitude. I experienced similar when I've been to Scotland a couple of times (I'm from West London). We'd walk into a cafe or restaurant and the staff were fine and welcoming until we spoke. The moment they heard that we obviously weren't Scottish,their attitude changed to being dismissive to the point of rudeness. I know I wasn't imagining it as I know several people who have had the same experience. Personally,I don't think you made a scene! They deserved it!

Yes - lots of anecdotal evidence about this. I think Mel Gibson and his highly inaccurate Braveheart has a lot to answer for!

I would love to visit Wales and Scotland again, but just don't want my holiday spoiled by feeling unwelcome - and I've heard lots about this kind of thing.

Same with Cornwall - they've made if abundantly clear they don't want English tourists. OK, then.

You'd think that people would be LESS prejudiced and petty in 2024 - but it seems being mean to the English is allowed!