Unintended Dickishness

Evil

Has this ever happened to you: you go through life doing something a certain way, but much later on (say, when you're 32) you find out that what you had been doing was a total douche bad move and that you had been being a dick the entire time.

Mandarin is a tricky language because it's homophonous, so there are many words that are pronounced the same. Additionally, it's typical for a single word to have multiple discrete meanings. For example, the word wei. I generally consider it to mean "seat." When you go into a Chinese restaurant, the host or hostess will ask you, "how many wei?" That is, how many people in your party (or more literally, how many seats do you require?).

When I am alone, I've always responded, "one wei."

During class yesterday, I learned that wei is also a very formal way of saying "respected person." So in restaurants, the host/hostess is really asking, "How many respected persons in your party?" And the response, "One wei" turns out to be a very arrogant response because you're referring to yourself too loftily. Crap! I feel like such a dick.