In 2015, I was at Melbourne (Australia) Airport to board a flight bound for Singapore. As I was queuing to clear customs, a group of three Chinese tourists who were ahead of me tried to ask an Asian woman in Mandarin for help in tackling the customs declaration form. The Asian woman seemed to understand Mandarin but impatiently responded to them in English which baffled the Chinese tourists who could not understand her. What resulted was what is termed in Mandarin as “chicken and duck talk” (jitong yajiang). Neither seemed to understand the other. I decided to intervene and responded to the Chinese tourists’ questions in Mandarin. They were delighted to finally have their questions answered and heaped praise on me. They asked me where I was from (Singapore) and seemed surprised, “Your putonghua [Mandarin] is so fluent!” while shooting the other Asian woman dirty looks. I sensed their disbelief that an ethnic Chinese overseas such as myself could speak good Mandarin and felt rather flustered. Amidst the praise, I became defensive and told them in a manner that implied of course I can speak Mandarin, “my grandfather was from China”. A pang of regret hit me as soon as I uttered the words. Did the Asian/English-speaking woman hear me? My remark may have unwittingly increased her “crime” (of not speaking Mandarin) since her grandparents could be from China as well.