The similarity between China and Barcelona

In China, as you may know, most people speak Chinese dialects when they are talking with their family and friends who are from the same city/town that they are from. For example, in Suzhou they speak the Suzhou dialect and in Shanghai they speak the Shanghai dialect. Although these two places are pretty close together, the dialects are different.

I am studying Chinese, but Mandarin - not the dialects. Therefore, when people speak in the dialects, I can rarely understand what they say (even less than when they speak in Mandarin). However, most people here speak the dialect most of the time and only speak in Mandarin when they are speaking with people who do not speak their dialect.

This reminds me of Barcelona, where the native people speak Catalan instead of Spanish when they talk with their friends and family. Only when they talk with outsiders, or people who are not from Cataluna, do they speak in Spanish. In Barcelona, people loved to speak to me in Catalan (even though I couldn't understand it), or speak in Catalan together and then only speak in Spanish when their comments or questions were directed towards me.

I had strong recollections of my time in Barcelona when I went to my friend's house this weekend. She and her family spoke their dialect almost the whole time. Because of this, I could understand very little. My friend was kind enough to translate most of what was said, but I felt like I was in Barcelona again. The only time her friends and family spoke in Mandarin was when they were talking to me - to ask if I understood what they were saying or to tell me to eat more.

Just like in Barcelona, people were not speaking the language I was studying, so unfortunately my listening skills did not improve too much during that weekend. It is interesting, though, to hear the different dialects and how they are different/similar to Mandarin. As of now, I know three different ways to say "thank-you" in Chinese (with three different dialects). Fascinating!