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Well I believe it. The stroganoff is amazing.

[ Pavel is soft in that regard but Hei doesn't judge him for it. Far be it from him to begrudge someone a decent upbringing. Not everyone can be killers and monsters -- the Syndicate would have nothing to hide from. At the compliment, he smiles and ducks his head, shyly repositioning his plate and glass as if in accordance to some strict mental framework. ('Li' is one of those people who makes fidgeting look like a tea ceremony). ]

Thank you. [ He glances at Pavel, ] I already get teased at work for acting like the Pillsbury DoughBoy. I shouldn't give them more reasons to pick on me. [ Although a funny hat would do wonders for 'Li's daily Bad Hairday. ]

[Between mouthfuls of food, Chekov pauses long enough to look befuddled.[

Pillsbury DoughBoy?

What's that?

Hm? [ Li glances from Pavel to Uhura. Oh. Right. Different homeworlds. He clears his throat, explaining, ] The Pillsbury Doughboy is a mascot of the Pillsbury Company. They, um, sell dry baking products. Their doughboy is a little white man-shaped blob. With a creepy giggle. [ Have an eerily accurate imitation of the Hee Hee. And a quick blush because. Crap. That was his deep dark secret. No one was supposed to find out. ]

[This is Chekov not laughing at you, Hei. He's trying--unsuccessfully--not to smile, but that's a losing battle.]

That is creepy. No hat, then; no need to draw attention to yourself.

[Uhura doesn't bother holding back her laugh.]

At least you don't look like a man-shaped blob. [Anyone else might be flirting, but Uhura is just stating a fact.]

[ Li pretends to busy himself with shoveling food into his mouth. Oh, wait. That's not pretense. The rims of his ears redden but otherwise he resists the urge to shrink under the table. ]

Maybe in the City that wouldn't be so bad. There are plenty of, um, non-people-shaped creatures here already, and no one seems bothered. [ It's disquieting, but something of a novelty. ]

It is strange, how little everyone is bothered by non-humans. What I've read led me to believe that, in most time periods, humans were unsettled by or hostile towards the unfamiliar.

Once you adjust to this place, I doubt there's much that can throw you.

[ Li glances at Pavel, murmuring thoughtfully, ] The hostility is still a problem in my homeworld. Even where fellow humans are concerned. [ Meanwhile, the mutual antipathy between Contractors and humans is a disaster-zone all on its own. To Uhura, he nods politely, ] It's kind of freeing, in a way. Half the people here are so jaded. The strangest things about newcomers seem dull to them. [ He manages a little smile, ] It's a nice change of pace from getting called gaijin-san back where I was staying in Tokyo.

To a degree, it's a problem in our time, as well. I have family members who aren't involved in Starfleet and can be xenophobic. And not all humans are kind to others, of course.

[This is the most negativity Pavel has expressed towards his own time out loud--and accidentally, too. He's very good at forgetting that the future isn't perfect.]

What does that word mean? What you were called?

It means "foreigner." [Uhura's far from fluent in Japanese, but that's a basic vocabulary term.] It's not exactly a rude term, but it's not exactly polite either.

[She turns to Hei.] Li Shenshung... that's a Chinese name, isn't it?

Edited 2013-04-30 20:47 (UTC)

[ Li skates a bit of mushroom around on his plate before lifting it to his mouth. He chews slowly, glancing at Pavel, ] I think the xenophobia is thanks to stereotypes. But they're so ingrained there's no helping them at times. It satisfies this need people have to categorize and predict their world. You have no reason to understand someone individually -- or to puzzle out their actions -- when it's all contained in a neat pigeonhole.

[ Because human beings are often cognitive misers. Certainly, Hei's prone to that tendency as much as anyone. Especially where Contractors are concerned. It's taken ages -- and a wealth of contradictory experiences -- to let that hatred fizzle out. Focusing on Uhura, he gives her a wan smile, ] Translated in English, sadly, the word loses its nuance. It can sound anywhere from nasty to impolite to just innocently-careless. But it depends more on its context. Gaikokujin -- someone from outside-the-country -- works better.

[ At the question, he nods, ] I was an exchange-student. There in Tokyo for school.

[Chekov has already inhaled his meal and can devote his full attention to the conversation... and to reminding himself that this is Li, not Hei.] Sometimes, Li, you are frighteningly good at making observations about humanity as a whole.

[Said with a smile, as if such observations are rare. Ha. His interest wanders as the two linguists--and he would consider Hei a linguist--discuss the nuances of the foreign word and is promptly distracted by a sudden idea regarding the faster-than-light machine that Delacroix is making. Pavel's attention fails to come back.]

[It's all right, Pavel. Uhura's distracted by languages.]

Do you speak Mandarin or Cantonese?

Only on a full stomach, [ Li demurs modestly. Like every book, a well-planned persona requires a spine. He often feels it necessary to let slip a few glimpses of gray-matter into 'Li's charade of fluff-&-flustering. He'd become a caricature otherwise. As the conversion shifts to languages, he watches Pavel's eyes glaze with an inward smile. He was like that too at 18, at least when he could afford to be. (He still gets that way sometimes. Put him in a poetry recital or a literature seminar and he'll sink into a boredom-induced coma.) ]

[ Smiling at Uhura, Li says, ] Mandarin. Some Cantonese and Shanghainese too. But lately I've been letting all three gather rust. [ Dialects and the subtleties of contour tonal languages lose meaning when strangers generally lump it all as plain Chinese. ]

Shanghainese? I'm not familiar with that. [By the magic space future, a lot of Earth's languages had become homogenized.]

I learned some Mandarin in university, but I haven't had a chance to use it in years. [Her speciality is xenolinguistics, after all.]

She adds, with a wry smile and very, very stilted Mandarin] I don't know if that makes you feel any better.

[ 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.) ]

[Chekov meanders back into the conversation to the sounds of a wholly unfamiliar language--one of those far eastern ones that he has absolutely no knowledge of. He sighs and remarks, in near-perfect (if somewhat distorted) Polish:]

If we must speak a foreign language around the dinner table, can it be one that we all understand?

[He doesn't know if either of them knows Polish, of course. It would make him feel less stupid--linguistically--if they didn't.]

[Polish, alas, is not one of Uhura's languages. She gives Chekov a fond-yet-not-really-amused look.]

Wenn Sie links Gefühl heraus, könnten Sie versuchen, die Teilnahme an dem Gespräch.

[It's not petty so much as it's playful.]

[He sighs as dramatically as humanly possible. Of the languages he knows, none of them trip him up like German and Uhura knows it.]

It's difficult for someone who isn't a linguist to make decent conversation at a meeting of linguists.

Edited 2013-05-06 00:43 (UTC)

[ ...........Congratulations, Li is confused. But don't feel bad. That's a common occurrence. ]

I'd hesitate to call myself a linguist like Miss Uhu -- Nyota. I couldn't understand either of those languages. [ AND IT MAKES HIM NERVOUS ARE YOU PLOTTING HIS MURDER YOU ARE AREN'T YOU?!! ]

Now you know how the rest of us feel. [giving Chekov an affectionate Look

To Li, she says] Do you think you could help me with my Mandarin? The City's a hard place to be a linguist in.

[Chekov slumps in his chair in mock petulance as they go back to talking about... whatever. Nyota has a point; he's usually the one who makes people feel like they don't know what's going on, not the other way around. He can live through this.

It helps that Hei apparently doesn't know Polish. He'll remember that.]

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