Woman Say Richmond McDonalds Discriminated Against Her By Refusing Her Service Because of Language

[CanucksSayEh]

This is like those american drivers that slam the brakes infront of you if they notice your car running poorly. Looking for a quick story/dollar through crappy loophole filled and oversensitive laws.

[red&white]

WOW. The issue isn't the language, its about one idiot manager who doesn't understand proper business etiquette. You don't tell someone to leave the store if they aren't doing anything wrong. How hard is it to understand hot chocolate? Simply point to the machine. I've had to deal with customers where I didn't understand a word they said, but I didn't tell them to leave. I simply listened harder and tried to see what they wanted. Regardless of how busy they are, they have a right to eat food, and languages are hard to learn.

[sakage.shinga]

Not knowing exactly what happened and what was said or not said, it's hard to place blame on either party. HOWEVER, having said that, I do want to make an observation about the recent immigrants that I've met.

It seems that certain immigrants (not saying it's all of them) are quite content to congregate within their own cultural circles (e.g. mandarin circles, cantonese circles), and are not willing to make the effort to learn the language of their new homeland. I believe that this is wrong.

When I came to Vancouver in the 90's, I was the only asian student in my school and I was forced to learn English rapidly or else there would be no one that I could talk to. And you know what, I'm thankful for that experience. In the end, I wasn't just an Asian living in Canada, instead I became a Chinese Canadian, fully capable of enjoying the fruits of both cultures.

I'm not saying that everyone who lives here must speak fluent English and have perfect grammar (I sure don't), but please at least make the strongest effort to learn and to integrate. I realize that certain demographics of the Asian community might experience more hardships than others due to age, so I'm totally not against businesses choosing to hire chinese-speaking staff to cater to those people. But to say that all businesses in Richmond should specifically go out of their way to cater to the Asian community is plain wrong.

[Amish Rake Fighter]

She should STFU, work on her English and stop lying about being discriminated against.

[King Heffy]

She should STFU, work on her English and stop lying about being discriminated against.

[Amish Rake Fighter]

The issue isn't the language barrier. The issue is the manager was a douche. Easiest solution to this problem is to take out a smartphone and use a translation app.

[drdeath]

Way to set your people back there Ms Sun.

[Bill Sikes]

We are only getting this lady's side of the story. What we don't know is how she reacted. There's a probability that she became disruptive and that was the reason she was asked to leave. I worked retail in high school and a few occasions we had to remove people from our store who spoke poor english not because we couldn't communicate, but because they would cause a disruption when we were unable to meet their needs

[Electro Rock]

I've experienced lots of discrimination at Asian restaurants, and had countless incidents where lack of English was a problem, including this one lady at the front desk at the emergency ward at VGH.

Maybe the McDonalds incident happened as claimed but this is hardly a one sided deal.

[Mainly Mattias]

No the easiest solution is for her to take some personal responsibility and learn English so this will never have a chance of happening.

And I don't buy her version of events either at all. A McDonald's in Richmond on 3 Rd discriminating against a Chinese person ? Yeah right. This lady doesn't even speak English, how on Earth did she even know what the manager said ?

[Baka]

As a grown ass man who hates coffee but loves his chocolate milk this is serious business. But going to the press is overkill. I would have just poured the coffee all over the counter and left. I am not a classy man but it would have been satisfying.

[bolt]

Considering her english is bad, how do we know that she understood the manager to get out?

[KoreanHockeyFan]

This kind of crap pisses me off. My mom immigrated to this country 20 years ago and I still see her 3-4 days a week early in the morning studying English.

You live in Canada, learn the damn language. It's even worse because I work in retail, and all I get all these Chinese people immediately speaking to me in Canto or Mandarin.

First of all, no I'm not Chinese, and second of all, and most importantly. SPEAK ENGLISH.

I'd go into more of how so many Asians in this city are willfully ignorant and grossly arrogant, but I don't want to stir a big fuss over this petty news story.

[Blue90]

This kind of crap pisses me off. My mom immigrated to this country 20 years ago and I still see her 3-4 days a week early in the morning studying English.

You live in Canada, learn the damn language. It's even worse because I work in retail, and all I get all these Chinese people immediately speaking to me in Canto or Mandarin.

First of all, no I'm not Chinese, and second of all, and most importantly. SPEAK ENGLISH.

I'd go into more of how so many Asians in this city are willfully ignorant and grossly arrogant, but I don't want to stir a big fuss over this petty news story.

[MANGO]

the problem is way bigger than this story. Nobody wants to be a Canadian anymore. Now everyone is _____-Canadian, French-Canadian, Indo-Canadian, Chinese-Canadian. I figure if you are immigrating here then you must like what we have. If you are fleeing your country cause it sucks for political reasons or economic reasons then you must recognise that we in Canada have it real good and you want too...... BE A PART OF IT. We out of the goodness of our hearts have let you immigrate here, only to be told that now we need to become more Chinese. No body is forcing you to be here, you can always go back home and get your 热巧克力.

I'm gonna walk into stores and start speaking jiberish, not to sound insensitive, but that's what a foreign language sounds like when you don't understand it, and claim discrimination.

[-DLC-]

One half a story that likely has more to it. If there was a language barrier and she wasn't conveying what it was she wanted in a way that could be understood, that's unfortunate. However, I can't see someone being so rude as to simply state "get out of here" due to this....I wonder if she persisted in an angry way, butt in front of others impeding service to others or there's more to this.

Two and two is equalling five for me. And lawsuits like this irk me, as they're sometimes often just opportunists looking for a cash cow. Not saying that's what happened here, but it's always a possibility so I want to hear the entire story before deciding....not just the "victim's" version of events.

This part, is unreasonable:

Nevertheless, Sun's son David Zhao wants McDonald's to take action by hiring Mandarin speakers at local restaurants.

They have no obligation to do so. And should they also then hire Cantonese, Punjabi, Spanish, Turkish speaking employees as well? I mean, to cover all bases? Why just Mandarin?

How about the obligation of his mother to effectively learn to communicate in one of two official languages of the country she's adopted as her own? I'm tired of the onus being on catering TO people...how about they make some effort also?

[kyledude]

Learn the language and quit acting silly. This isn't China.

[-DLC-]

WOW. The issue isn't the language, its about one idiot manager who doesn't understand proper business etiquette. You don't tell someone to leave the store if they aren't doing anything wrong. How hard is it to understand hot chocolate? Simply point to the machine. I've had to deal with customers where I didn't understand a word they said, but I didn't tell them to leave. I simply listened harder and tried to see what they wanted. Regardless of how busy they are, they have a right to eat food, and languages are hard to learn.

They have a right to eat food - you're right

But we have to assume that she had approached an employee, and things disintegrated. And you don't have the right to cause a disturbance and, again, this suggests that things may have gone beyond just trying to enjoy food. It likely was a back and forth that didn't end well, as someone likely did use an inappropriate response. But we have options - we can get upset over silly things, like they messed up my order and dig in our heels and fight for our rights or we can simply chalk it up to a mistake. There are a few sayings that apply for me, one of which is pick your battles. Not sure this one was initially worth fighting for.

[Blue90]

the problem is way bigger than this story. Nobody wants to be a Canadian anymore. Now everyone is _____-Canadian, French-Canadian, Indo-Canadian, Chinese-Canadian. I figure if you are immigrating here then you must like what we have. If you are fleeing your country cause it sucks for political reasons or economic reasons then you must recognise that we in Canada have it real good and you want too...... BE A PART OF IT. We out of the goodness of our hearts have let you immigrate here, only to be told that now we need to become more Chinese. No body is forcing you to be here, you can always go back home and get your 热巧克力.

I'm gonna walk into stores and start speaking jiberish, not to sound insensitive, but that's what a foreign language sounds like when you don't understand it, and claim discrimination.

[-DLC-]

...and, in following up, I've seen signs that state "we have a right to refuse service". If there is an agitated or confrontational patron in an establishment, I do believe management does have the right to ask them to leave. However, if they stated it was because "you can't even speak English", that's inappropriate. But you can't raise a stink in front of other customers or, yes, you can be asked to leave.