Say what?

As you may or may not know, we require the students only speak English during their time here to keep up the intense learning pressure. There are some penalties for breaking this "english only environment." As the Chinese staff speaks English and the American staff has a pretty good grasp on the language, normally it isn't a problem. However, sometimes it's just funny. Like today.

At lunch, some students were milling around outside the cafeteria, talking or buying small snacks or drinks or whatever, when a delivery truck came up. The driver hopped out and asked (in Chinese) where a certain building was. The student she asked just looked to the ground and shook her head no. The driver then asked the next student she saw, who promptly asked if she could speak English. By this point, the driver looked pretty confused. She asked several more people, and they all either smiled shyly or talked back in English. Finally, she got pointed in the direction of a fruit vendor on campus who only speaks Chinese. She walked away saying "You are all Chinese, but yet...you can't understand me?"