Awful Experience at Colibri, Portola Springs

I see this all the time in Chinese restaurants where "Americans" are so upset about the rude service.  But these servers are just being what they have always been in a Chinese environment.  This is the culture...as you expect them to accept your culture, you need to do the same to them.

Go hang out in Monterey Park/San Gabriel/Alhambra and it's no different.  I understand that's not what you want from Irvine, but they like you and I were drawn by the good schools and family oriented living.  I'm the only non Chinese on my street, except the white guy who married the Chinese woman.  And yes he's the only guy that says hi to me.  I see the positives...no one going to borrow my tools and never return it.  ;)

 
Costco said:
Lets start a new "I hate mainland Chinese FCB" thread. There's been a handful of Chinese FCBs moving into my neighborhood recently. For some reason, they all drive Mercedes SUVs. They're not friendly. I once tried to talk to one of them. He didn't speak English much and he just kept walking.
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You can throw a Mercedes badge onto a Buick Enclave and they'll buy it because they think its a Benz...

 
broda said:
I see this all the time in Chinese restaurants where "Americans" are so upset about the rude service.  But these servers are just being what they have always been in a Chinese environment.  This is the culture...as you expect them to accept your culture, you need to do the same to them.

Go hang out in Monterey Park/San Gabriel/Alhambra and it's no different.  I understand that's not what you want from Irvine, but they like you and I were drawn by the good schools and family oriented living.  I'm the only non Chinese on my street, except the white guy who married the Chinese woman.  And yes he's the only guy that says hi to me.  I see the positives...no one going to borrow my tools and never return it.  ;)
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The people being made about bad service in Chinese restaurants are pretty funny to me.  It's like they've never been a Chinese  restaurant before.  Also, from what I have heard...service is pretty terrible in most places outside of the US. 

I agree about Irvine...it's not a classic "get to know your neighbors" area but you can build a small community of friends from kids activities, school and church.  I have lived in my apartment for 4 years and know no one there.  I do have a group of close friends living in Irvine through a variety of interactions.
 
Sorry to hear your bad experience. As a father of a toddler, I totally understand your bad feelings when you saw those indifferent Chinese ignoring your situation. However I really don't think Chinese people are what you think they are. I am from mainland China. I believe there is some misunderstandings here.

In China (especially in mainland), people must be very cautious about accepting help from a stranger if he doesn't want to be a victim of fraud. On the other hand, Chinese people don't show initiative in offering help to strangers -- when doing so, he is taking the risk of being thought as a fraud.

That being said, I don't think Chinese people are lack of sympathy or are not willing to help at all. Most likely they simply don't know what to do. Actually if you ask for help from them explicitly, I am sure most of them would be more than happy to help you (assuming they can understand you).

Besides culture difference, the misunderstanding is also due to the fact that the society where we grown up is not a normal one. This is one of the most important reasons why so many Chinese people want to immigrate to the US. -- We want our children to live in a country where the good is rewarded and the bad is punished.

aquabliss said:
My family visited Colibri Saturday afternoon, and while walking through the Plan 1, my 2 year old son vomited up all the grilled cheese sliders he just ate from the food truck at Acadia.  Yup, right there all over the new tile flooring in Plan 1.  They actually had an agent stationed in the plan answering buyers questions, she was an older asian lady who looked rather annoyed that my son had vomited, and not the least bit concerned about his health or safety (my wife and I were freaking out a bit because he's never thrown up before and didn't show any signs of being sick earlier in the day). 

She begrudgingly drug her feet to the sales office and asked some other people to bring a roll of paper towels.  We felt terrible about it and were apologizing to her quite profusely but all she did was turn up her nose at us.  I understand she was probably frustrated and annoyed that my son had vomited in the model where she has to work the rest of the day, but she didn't have one ounce of caring or concern in her.  She never said "don't worry about it we will clean it", or even asked if he was OK or if we needed anything.  She was so smug and obnoxious - I think she did say something about removing him from the model home and taking him to the port-a-potty outside. 

It was an awful experience for me and left a really bad taste in our mouths (literally and figuratively) regarding the builder and their staff.  Even worse, when we finally got cleaned up (or as clean as we could with the paper towels they brought) and I was carrying my son out through the sales office, the lady working there who knew what had happened, had the audacity to badger us to sign in before we walked out.  She asked us to do so on our way in, but I was holding my son and my wife was holding our daughter, so we told her we didn't have any free hands.  I wanted to say some choice words to her but I bit my tongue and just walked out without saying anything. 

Another interesting tidbit to this story was since he vomited quite a lot (about 3 times sequentially), I was standing in the model home holding a lot of "it" between him and my arms waiting for the paper towels to show up - if I moved or put my son down it would have splattered.  During this 3-5 minutes, there were a number of people coming into the home to look around.  My wife would be sure to tell them (as they entered the kitchen) that our toddler had just thrown up, we were waiting for it to be cleaned and to please (for their sake) wait a few minutes before walking through that area.  There must have been 5-10 FCB's who completely ignored her, saw the puke on the ground and literally walked right over it.  I couldn't believe what I was seeing.  They just walked right through it like it was nothing, continued chatting in Mandarin about the outside patio, yard, etc.  It was really strange and I was shocked at the lack of candor.
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Sorry to hear about your little guy, hopefully he's all better now.  I wasn't feeling all that peachy on Saturday either with the damn heat and buyer traffic at the model home openings either but I tend not to eat a lot when it's really hot outside (I drank a lot of water and gaterade this weekend though). 
 
USCTrojanCPA said:
Sorry to hear about your little guy, hopefully he's all better now.  I wasn't feeling all that peachy on Saturday either with the damn heat and buyer traffic at the model home openings either but I tend not to eat a lot when it's really hot outside (I drank a lot of water and haterade this weekend though).
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Costco said:
Lets start a new "I hate mainland Chinese FCB" thread. There's been a handful of Chinese FCBs moving into my neighborhood recently. For some reason, they all drive Mercedes SUVs. They're not friendly. I once tried to talk to one of them. He didn't speak English much and he just kept walking.
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PEOPLE....It's not because FCBs are rude...it's because they are new to the US and have not yet learned the language.  Put yourselves in their shoes.  If you just moved over to mainland China all you would say is "hi" as well.  You would be nervous about trying to carry on a full conversation.  Also, believe me there are just as many rude and impolite non-asians as well.  There have been countless times where i would walk around Woodbury and not once would an "american" say hello. 
 
ak said:
Costco said:
Lets start a new "I hate mainland Chinese FCB" thread. There's been a handful of Chinese FCBs moving into my neighborhood recently. For some reason, they all drive Mercedes SUVs. They're not friendly. I once tried to talk to one of them. He didn't speak English much and he just kept walking.
Click to expand...

PEOPLE....It's not because FCBs are rude...it's because they are new to the US and have not yet learned the language.  Put yourselves in their shoes.  If you just moved over to mainland China all you would say is "hi" as well.  You would be nervous about trying to carry on a full conversation.  Also, believe me there are just as many rude and impolite non-asians as well.  There have been countless times where i would walk around Woodbury and not once would an "american" say hello.
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I disagree.  The FCB are also rude in Chinese...I know I hear them talking (which is one of the best thing about being an Chinese-American understanding Chinese).  It's not just about culture...it's really about class.  FCB by definition are generally upper class.  If you can afford to buy a million dollar in the US, you are of the superwealthy in China.  Their attitude is one of wealth looking down at others.  Of course, it would be unfair to categorize all FCBs or Mainland Chinese people the same but there is definitely a difference between FCBs and a Chinese foreign student.
 
ak said:
Costco said:
Lets start a new "I hate mainland Chinese FCB" thread. There's been a handful of Chinese FCBs moving into my neighborhood recently. For some reason, they all drive Mercedes SUVs. They're not friendly. I once tried to talk to one of them. He didn't speak English much and he just kept walking.
Click to expand...

PEOPLE....It's not because FCBs are rude...it's because they are new to the US and have not yet learned the language.  Put yourselves in their shoes.  If you just moved over to mainland China all you would say is "hi" as well.  You would be nervous about trying to carry on a full conversation.  Also, believe me there are just as many rude and impolite non-asians as well.  There have been countless times where i would walk around Woodbury and not once would an "american" say hello.
Click to expand...

If I just moved over to China and have not yet learned the language, I would probably try to immerse myself in the language by "trying" to speak to all the locals.  I would try to learn about their culture and embrace what I can.  I would smile and be polite because that goes a long way next to staring and being rude...


jus sayin...
 
I think it's a Ryland Homes thing. As I mentioned in another thread, I visited a bunch of new communities on June 29, then headed over to a bunch of new communities in Sendero in Mission Viejo on the 30th.

On the 29th, Colibri was the only one where the salesperson wanted people sign in and was a bit upset when we grabbed the brochure that she handed over as we were supposed to be signing in. That wasn't that bad though. On the 30th, when we were at the Ryland Homes development in Sendero, we were part of a foursome. One in our foursome signed in, and even though we were 2 couples, she only wanted to give out one brochure/floorplans. When I asked if I could also have a brochure, she asked "Oh, you want a price list?" No, I said, I want the floorplans. She let out a sigh and in a pouty way handed me a brochure. I asked if I could also have a price list and she snarled back "it's in there!". Again, in no other development in Sendero that we visited (5) did they ask you to register. And to get such a negative response, as if she were paying for the brochure herself.

I'm not in the market to buy a new home anytime soon, but I sure as hell will be staying away from Ryland Homes if I ever am, just based on these 2 experiences, and what you went through as well.
 
money magnifies ones personality.  if you are an a$$hole at heart and you make big time money (FCB) you become a bigger a$$hole

if you are a good person (like me  :) ), and you make big time money you become an even better person

it has nothing to do with the language, etc.
 
Sorry to hear about your experience Aqua. Qwerty is right- language and country have nothing to do with empathy. Without talking ethnicity, here is an experience I want to share: A couple of months ago, we were all waiting in line for curbside pick up at school. That's usually the time when shirtless guys and sports bra women jog. One of the women jogger fell down. I don't know what happened to her. There were at least twenty people of different ethnicity around her, and almost everyone was sure she wasn't drunk.. still no one helped her up. I didn't see her get up immediately either. Told kid to go check on her. But at the same time,  lady in the van in front of me ran out to help her. She helped the jogger up, and the jogger went waking. God forbid if I ever get into a fatal accident or get a heart attack in Irvine- I know there won't be any help!

Glad to hear your kid is alright. Keep an eye though, with little ones, things return sometimes.
 
Sorry about what happened to your kid. 

However I do feel this forum became Chinese-hated.  No empathy  not only happens in Chinese, but also White, black or hispanic. 

Last time my kid was climing the stairs and pushed down by a little boy, the stairs were almost vertical.  The parents of the little boy did not even ask how my kid doing, started fighting with me because I said to the little boy " don't push".  The parents are White.  They were ugly ugly, no empahty at all, very rude.    White People!!!
 
gld2 said:
Sorry about what happened to your kid. 

However I do feel this forum became Chinese-hated.  No empathy  not only happens in Chinese, but also White, black or hispanic. 

Last time my kid was climing the stairs and pushed down by a little boy, the stairs were almost vertical.  The parents of the little boy did not even ask how my kid doing, started fighting with me because I said to the little boy " don't push".  The parents are White.  They were ugly ugly, no empahty at all, very rude.    White People!!!
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It's not meant to be an attack on Chinese people...but there is certainly a cultural and class disconnect.  I am Chinese and do not like how FOBs shelter themselves.  Some of it is a lack of familiarity and cultural but a lot of it is just plain "don't care."  First generation Chinese people are also extremely racist/prejudiced, even toward other Asians.  FCBs are probably the worst extreme of that because they have enough money not too care. 
 
Unfortunately my experience has been the same.

This TV commercial perfectly captures my experience, and frustration. 

The rule that I found is: if you are in a public situation where there is a direct benefit to whoever acts fast and moves first, with a total disregard for civility and good manners, they would do it 9 of 10 times.

Unfortunately, my goodwill reservoir has been depleted, and I don't give them anymore the benefit of the doubt: standing in line in Costco, on the road sharing a lane, waiting for space in a parking lot, standing in line in the movie theater, in Starbucks, etc, etc.

[youtube]8RcGnEGcDdA[/youtube]
 
I like how Rocker tries to play politically correct by calling them the "ethnic group" after everything that has been said.

Let's be real...all ethnicity are responsible for the same social misconducts.  We are in this hyper sensitive world if you help some random person, in this case a child, your intentions can be mistaken for something negative.  We are all guilty of it at some point in our lives...as the phrase goes. "don't act like your $h!t don't smell"

I think the Chinese and Koreans  are a little blown out of proportion because of their lack of understanding of the American culture makes their rudeness seem worse than it really is.  First generation Asians in general all feel entitled.  It's the way the Asian cultures are...add money to it, and they have a greater sense of entitlement. Most of them came from next to nothing...so to have this wealth they want to make sure you all know they earned it. Even if they did get it from their corrupt uncle.


 
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