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Language discrimination ?

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I went out for drinks and eating in a western style cake shop with one of my friends from New York here in Guangzhou City... ... my friend is a lovely person but kept complaining about the standard of spoken English of local people, complaining that they were not practising English communication in daily lives, she even requested I stop speaking in Mandarin but English with that Chinese waitress (she is able to communicate in English for orders). I fully understand my friend's frustration, I tried to explain, not all people in the shops could communicate well with foriegners in English, most of them are of lower education, they don't possess good command of non-mother tongue language ... they don't know how to interact with foreigners who don't speak Chinese. My friend doesn't understand very much of the local situation, she might have thought everyone received good education like in America in general.

Well, not all educated Chinese could speak very fluent English. But is it not acceptable? I have ever heard of any Chinese criticized foreigners who can't speak Chinese in China.

Chinese who go abroad must be able to speak good English or the languages used in where they are. There are many foreigners who learnt to speak fluent Chinese here. In your cities, have you ever criticized or found it unacceptable when Chinese could not speak English or your language so well? Why would you / some foreigners find it unable to accept when others couldn't speak their language well ? Is this language discrimination?

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