[ Li brushes the unfamiliarity away with a courteous smile. ] It's not surprising. It's a Wu dialect prevalent in Shanghai and Zhejiang. But with most of the younger generation being taught standard Chinese, it's almost a dying language.

[ The remark, in Mandarin, gets a twitch of an almost-laugh -- amused, grateful, good-natured -- before he composes himself enough to reply, ] Considerably better. I imagine if I phrased myself as formally as you, my teachers would've been happier. [ It's a tease, but also a compliment. The warmth in his smile seems genuine. (It's not deliberate but subconscious. Like most polyglots, he has a distinctly different personality depending on which language he's speaking. Businesslike in English, laidback in Japanese, wry in Mandarin and gruff in Portuguese.) ]