I wish I knew how to tell you to shut up in that language...

Sometimes it's hard to categorize a group of people without ignorantly stereotyping.  Most of the time it doesn't really matter.  So without further ado...

Bienvenidos, Willkommen, Benvenuto to my list, chatty foreigners.  

It's awkward to have phone conversations in front of other people.  There are folks who have no problem mouthing off at their "special somebodies" in more places than Sarah Silverman fucked Matt Damon (ziiiiing!), and we sometimes call them friends, but for this they're socially inept and obnoxious.  Unless you're in the privacy of your own sound barriers, phone conversations should be strictly informative: "I'll meet you in five minutes";  "Yea, I called him about an hour ago, but he didn't answer so you should try your other guy";  "No I don't fucking want chicken for dinner again!". It's generally accepted that no one wants or needs to overhear the intimacies of your life.  The best it's going to do is land your ass a spot on the list.

Bilinguals seem to have pulled out the stops on this problem.  The logic- if I speak in another language, I can talk as loud as I want for as long as I want!  The problem- it's not always the content of your conversation, it's the context.  To break this wordplay down for you TOEFLers, it's not just your stupid conversation that's bothering me, it's your loud fucking mouth.  When speaking in a different language, not only do "bi" people drudge on for longer, but at a louder volume. This is known as the "Madden Complex". 

A thousand words:

Stranger- I've never seen you before in my life.  This would make it highly unlikely that you're talking about me, so the fact that I'm staring you down with one hand on the sack and the other flipping you the bird has nothing to do with what you're saying.  It's how loud you're saying it.  I took a Fung Wah bus from New York to Boston and sat next to a Japanese lady who was on her cell phone for as long as I could suffer sitting there.  At the earliest opportunity, I got off the bus and hitch hiked the rest of the way to Boston.  I was raped and left for dead in a field somewhere around Sturbridge, and all I could think about was what a nice, quiet evening it was.  

I like to be as much a part of the solution as the next guy.  While there isn't a lot of room for creativity here, I've managed to turn two simple and realistic options from this scenario: turn your shit down and shut up,  or turn your shit down by shutting up.