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?

Some of the comments simply confirm why the English are seen as arrogant and are universally disliked and mocked.

I get that some of the comments are very irritating. The silly notion that people change to speaking Welsh when an English person enters a shop etc. when in reality they were speaking their first language naturally in their own country.
Some people from England are very ill informed and there is an arrogance in assuming that their own language and culture should dominate everywhere.
I do think there's a danger in generalising and using the term "the English" though.

Many people move to Wales and are very respectful of the culture and interested in it, they make an effort to learn the language, although only a minority attain complete fluency.
It wasn't "The English" as a whole who oppressed the language and the Welsh people in the past either. It was the English ruling class, who were equally busy oppressing miners, mill workers and agricultural labourers in England. (and also in the case of people like Douglas Pennant, benefitting from slave plantations abroad). It was just worse in Wales than in England because they also oppressed the language and culture.

There are pleasant and unpleasant people living everywhere. I don't doubt for a minute that an English child living in a village and attending a Welsh school could be bullied for being English. Bullies will look for anything that puts you in a minority and use it. A child with a strong Welsh accent could equally be bullied in some places in England.
Dwi'n wedi byw yng Nghrymru ers amswer hir rwan. Mae 'na lot o pobl sy'n cyfeillgar a gwrtais ond weithiau mae 'na dipyn o densiwn.

Some of it depends on your attitude.

It is fair, because the only thing that tells you that someone is English is their accent. And even then, as I pointed out upthread, they might not be! See Steph Twell and Beth Dobbin - athletes who compete for Scotland but have very English accents. Hating on people because of how they speak is stupid in the extreme.

And it is stupid to blame people who live today for what happened decades or centuries ago.

Oh, and it was often Welsh people who enforced the "Welsh not" because they thought their kids would do better if they spoke English.

That's not the flex you think it is.

Spot on. Maybe look into why @sharpclawedkitten before you think you’ve just had a ‘gotcha moment’

The only Welsh born and bred person I knew in London was not a very nice person. To be honest, I felt that she judged me for being Asian. But when I went to North Wales on holiday with my elderly mum, everybody was very friendly and when we had an incident, people went above and beyond for us. I will never forget those people and I'm still in touch with them.

I’ve known a few not very nice people but have never thought to blame that quality on their nationality.

Where did I blame her nationality?

YADNBU !!! I would've gone absolutely batshit at her, in Welsh! Demanded a refund, walked out, and left a scathing review.

I’m feeling really touchy due to this thread. Glad you got a better experience of Welsh people when you actually came to Wales.

We don't need a critique of the Welsh people based on the ones that you know. We're not on trial here

This is bullshit. Entirely. This whole thread is a pile of shit. Substitute Wales/Welsh for honestly any other nation and language and this thread would have been in the bin hours ago.

Yet you've been fine with English people being critiqued.

I shared just one example of me learning not to judge a nation based on one prejudiced person.

You don't need to explain racism to me, I live it often.

This thread had nothing whatsoever to do with English people. A waitress was rude to a welsh person, then everyone piles on with "yeah the Welsh are racist".

Tbh I'm amazed you needed to learn not to judge a country based on one not very nice person.

This is why I’m so baffled the thread is still standing

But English people have been critiqued on this thread and you've been fine with it.

At least I did learn. What have you learned?

I don't need to learn anything, thank you! I've said myself up thread that I could list loads of times people have been rude to me in England. I don't judge everyone there based on that. Christ does this even need saying?

I've not endorsed anyone's posts but my own, but don't make out this is tit for tat. It isn't. This thread is an awful example of the way Wales is vilified for speaking Welsh when the fact that Cymraeg still exists is a huge credit to us as a nation. We're allowed to speak it whenever we want. I'm not surprised there are some defensive people on here. Because it's bollocks and it shouldn't still be up.

But I didn't just someone was rude to me. Nice minimising. I said I felt was being judged for my race. Can you really not see why that would have made me wary and then happy when my wariness was unfounded? And why is it ok for you to say that you had a great time in North Wales and the people were lovely but when I say the same you say 'We don't need your critique.'?

Wary of that person, yes! But not an entire nation of people!

I was directly refuting the premise of the original post, that English speaking people are treated like crap in North Wales. I am an English speaking person who doesn't recognise that remark based on my experience in North Wales. Totally different to your contribution.

You weren't talking about your experience of Welsh speakers (which is what the thread is about) you - among others - just start critiquing the people that you met that are Welsh, or Welsh people generally. One of whom wasn't even in Wales, and that particular experience had nothing to do with their language, or their nationality. If you never needed that help from those kind people, you'd still be thinking all Welsh people are racist now, would you?

When the children were small we would go camping, we were hard up, and it was usually reasonably cheap. I went to get some shopping from a village shop, in N Wales. Nothing was individually priced then, only on the shelf front. The woman at the checkout blatantly overcharged me for everything. I was on my own, 50 yrs ago now, with a line of locals behind me, I seethe when I’m reminded of it, Wales is beautiful, but never again.

Yes because nothing will have changed in 50 years with Welsh local shops. They still use the old decimals in the most rural areas don’t you know, and guess the price on what the weather is like at that particular moment…

So you’ve written off the whole of Wales on the basis of that one encounter?

When I went to England once, 30 years ago, a woman there was rude to me too in front of everyone.

Somehow I managed to realise that this one rude English woman doesn’t represent the whole country and have not thought ‘never again’ about stepping foot back in England

When I worked in London an English woman almost shoved me under a train in her haste to get on it. The English really are all murderous monsters and I feel much safer now I am back in Wales.

An English person was rude to me once; but despite the fact that I have also met rude Welsh people, I have decided to irrationally hone in on the nationality of the English person.

I’ve had my own back, however. Every time I now hear an English voice, I immediately switch from speaking English to Welsh which highlights an amazing paradox. Welsh is de-valued as a ‘dead language that no-one speaks,’ yet an entire pub can speak the language on mass upon English people walking into the bar. Unless of course, a Welsh person has decided to have a ‘day off’ from speaking the language, which this thread has taught me is a thing.

I feel that it is my patriotic duty to keep ‘Cymrophobia’ going as much as possible, despite my son being half-English. Maybe that is why I named him..Bradwr.

Because the OP mostly speaks English and everyone understands English?