How to deal with very judgmental people

Oooh it's been a busy few days - this is my draft from a recent podcast which you can listen to by clicking here. So let me share with you a question that a young friend from gymnastics has asked me recently. She wants to learn another language but wasn't sure which to pick. She has some interest in French but said she felt like (and I am quoting her), "no matter how good I become in French, the moment I open my mouth and speak French with an accent, the French people are going to notice at once that I'm not French and hate me, even if my French is near perfect." Now that made me react at once because that's completely wrong. So let's try to understand what's going on with the French people together.

Before I explain why she is wrong, allow me to share my credentials with you when it comes to the French language. I was a very late starter in French. It was deemed too difficult for me as a student - in Singapore, English is the first language and main language of instruction in the education system, then you had to do a second language which is usually an Asian language associated with your ethnic and cultural heritage, so for me, that was Mandarin-Chinese. Then you could opt to do a third language like French, German or Japanese if you performed well in both your first and second languages, but whilst I aced English, I didn't do that well in Chinese as I was just too lazy to memorize the many thousands of characters in the Chinese language. I could speak Mandarin perfectly well as I grew up with gymnastics coaches from Beijing but ultimately, the system said no, you're too stupid to handle a third language and that was a decision that made no sense at all, but that's the Singaporean system for you. My sister excelled in both English and Mandarin but failed French, so my parents were like, "if your sister struggled with French, how can you succeed where she has failed when you're not as smart as her?" Excelling in your second language was seen as a compulsory prerequisite to even attempt to learn a third language. Just because I didn't excel in Chinese didn't mean I wouldn't excel in all foreign languages. It is wrong to treat all languages as if they're all the same level of difficulty - the CIA's Foreign Service Institute has a scale that ranks how difficult languages are for people who speak English as a first language and there are five levels. Languages like French which are closest to English are in category 1 whilst languages most different from English like Mandarin are in category 5. Yup, I was set up to fail by the terrible education system of Singapore - don't believe what you might have heard about the education system in Singapore as fallacies like that.

So I decided to prove them all wrong by learning French, because I knew that I would find French a lot easier than Mandarin - my French was mostly self-taught, I had just finished my A levels and had to spend 2 years 4 months in the army, doing my military service and I got very bored. I had gone from studying many hours a week to doing absolutely nothing with my brilliant brains in the army. So I decided, I'll go get some French books and start teaching myself French in my free time. I breezed through the courses and by the time I enrolled at university and wanted to do courses in French, the French lady there said to me in her outrageous French accent, "mais non non non, zat course is for the people who have done A level French and you don't have that, you need a beginner's course." So I challenged her, test my French, surely you have some kind of system to evaluate students who didn't go through the British education system but have studied the language for many years. To her credit, yes the university did have such a test which I took, I aced it with a near perfect score and was allowed onto an advanced French course where I outperformed many of my British classmates who had studied French for over ten years whilst all I had was about 2 years of self-study when I was in the army. I had figured French out mostly on my own because as it turned out, it was a combination of a few factors: I had an aptitude for French, I was a great student who knew how to self-study and not rely on a teacher and I had the discipline to put in the hard work to make that happen. Not only did I ace French at university, I also went on exchange in France and attended one of the top universities in France - Paris-IV Sorbonne where I got my French to a very high standard. I have worked for various companies in the UK, France, Belgium and Luxembourg and have thrived in a French-only work environment where the locals didn't feel the need to switch to English to accommodate me - I am proud to say that I have won the respect of the French people I have worked with over the years with my standard of French and thus what my gymnast had said about French people being racist and xenophobic was totally wrong. No, it is something else. 

There is a huge difference between someone who simply hates anyone foreign unconditionally and someone who is judgmental about a particular facet of your skills. Are there racists in France who will hate all foreigners? Yes, but they are very few and far in between. But what you are more likely to encounter on a daily basis in France are judgmental people who will judge you on how good your French is; here's a key difference you have to understand between French people and say someone from a country like Latvia. French people are so proud of their culture that they expect foreigners and tourists alike to be able to speak French, because why wouldn't you want to learn the best language in the world and access their amazing French culture? So if you speak French well, they would respond with respect, admiration and love because they realize you've taken the time, effort and trouble to master the French language. But if you speak French poorly or worse, ask if they can speak English with you, then they would get offended because you've not made an effort with their language. Contrast this to a country like Latvia, where the locals certainly do not expect anyone foreign to know how to speak Latvian, they would be far more happy to speak to you in English and if you can speak even a few words of Latvian, they will be like, "wow, you speak Latvian really well, that's amazing!" Now you're never going to get that kind of reaction from a French person, the biggest compliment they will give you is to simply speak to you in French as if you are French, signalling that they have accepted you as one of their own. And if a French person switches to English for you, that's them saying, "stop speaking French, my ears bleed when I hear you mispronounce every single word like that." But since this conversation started with one of my gymnasts, let's use gymnastics as an analogy to try to understand what is going on here when it comes to this kind of judgmental behaviour. 

In gymnastics, we have judges at competitions, so every performance will receive a score and thus the winners are determined on that basis. We have strict rules to govern how the performances are evaluated and judged so the outcome will always be fair. The competitors and their coaches will know exactly what the scoring criteria and rules are before each competition, so they know how to prepare for that competition and maximize their scoring potential. So what my gymnast was suggesting, that all French people will hate you even if you speak French really well - that's like a judge who will give you a zero for your gymnastics routine even if you delivered a performance that was worthy of an Olympic gold medal. That outcome is very different from a judge who is harsh but fair - I remember an incident from some years ago when I was a judge at a gymnastics competition and I gave this gymnast a very low score as her performance was poor. Her father then came up to me and demanded an explanation, he felt that his daughter's performance had been great and she had been judged too harshly, that the score I had given her didn't reflect the performance he had seen. I then explained how there were so many children competing that afternoon and they couldn't all be winners, there was a harsh but fair system devised to ensure that we picked the right winner - I went on to show him a breakdown of the way his daughter's rather poor routine had been scored: it was mostly down to her lack of difficulty in her routine and I noted each and every mistake that she had made which racked up a lot of deductions. The father wasn't satisfied with my detailed and technical explanation at all, he said that this was too harsh and that the gymnasts should all be given some kind of participation award or medal, because being hit with this kind of harsh judgment in the form of a low score was too discouraging. I suppose he wanted the kind of reaction I got when I visited Riga in Latvia, spoke a few words of Latvian like labdien, ka jums klajas? And the locals would be like, wow you speak Latvian really well! Yeah, you're not going to get that kind of reaction from a gymnastics judge like me because the clue is in the job title: the judge is there to pass judgment but the system is harsh but fair. The judge isn't going to give everyone a zero because they're cruel and hateful, but by the same token the judge isn't going to give everyone a gold medal either - you want that gold medal, you're going to have to earn it by very working hard and putting in a performance that is worthy of that gold medal. 

A judgmental person loves to pass judgment, there is a certain power trip involved in this process where you evaluate whether the subject in front of you is worthy or not. You would see this a lot in gymnastics competitions, I remember how I had one coach who would always make sure everyone in the team was dressed properly, the girls would have their hair done up neatly, we were always told to give the judges eye contact and greet them respectfully. All that, before we even begin our warm up, just so we gave the judges a good impression - we wanted the judges to like us. Having been both a gymnast and a judge, I know what it is like on both sides of that table and I understand the power dynamics. If a judge is going to give you a big fat zero no matter how hard you try, then you would never bother perform under such circumstances if there is no chance of a reward that reflected your efforts. Thus the judge has to dangle some kind of carrot, a chance to score really well and win that gold medal in order to maintain that level of control over the competitors. Likewise, if you knew that the judges were going to give everyone a participation medal no matter how well or poorly you performed, then you have no motivation at all to try hard under such circumstances. So whilst that father may feel that such a judgmental system may be harsh to the losers at a competition, it is really the only fair way to bring out the best in all the gymnasts competing. I would compare French people to that gymnastics judge who is harsh but fair. Yes they will be mean to you, mock you and roll their eyes if you speak French badly but if you do speak French very well and have proven that you have mastered French as a foreign language, then you will get the gold medal from them in the form of respect, friendship and admiration. But to hold this power over you, there has got to be a transparent and fair system of judgment with the possibility of winning that gold medal and yes, I can confirm that I have done exactly that as someone who speaks French fluently but as a foreign language. French people are indeed extremely judgmental but they are neither racist nor xenophobic, this is probably because they wield a lot more power over you by being judgmental and therefore you need to understand that power dynamic as it applies to so many other areas in life. 

Allow me to take you back to my primary school in Singapore - I'm going to compare and contrast two teachers, Mr A and Mrs B. Now Mr A was a scary teacher, he was very strict, you would be punished for something like talking during his class, he demanded your full attention during the lessons. Mrs B was equally strict but there was one key difference: there were two sides to Mrs B. When you performed well in the tests and exams, she would praise you. During the lesson, she would randomly select a student to answer a question to see if the student had been paying attention, if the student got the answer wrong, then she would punish that student harshly. But if the student gave the right answer, then she would praise and reward that student. It was this second aspect of praise and reward that differentiated Mrs B from Mr A because with Mr A, the only reward was the avoidance of his harsh punishments. So whilst Mr A ruled his class with an iron fist with the students constantly in fear of his punishments, it was in fact Mrs B who got the best out of her students because unsurprisingly, the possibility of getting some kind of reward, even if it was a hint of a smile and simple words like "very good, well done" was enough to make the students want to earn that reward. I'm going to call a spade a spade, Mr A was a miserable old man who hated his job and probably hated his life even more, if he thought that being super strict would help him control his class, he was wrong because when he made it clear that there's absolutely no way to earn his approval then most his students simply stopped trying because there was virtually no difference between performing well or badly in his class. I remember once I did particularly well in a test, scoring full marks and I made a little spontaneous cheer of joy - instead of using that moment to showcase to the rest of the class how great one can feel when one excels in these tests, he shouted at me to sit down and shut up, for I was disturbing the class. There wasn't even a flicker of recognition as to why I had a reason to celebrate like that. He wanted to take away what little joy I had as a result of performing well in that test. Yeah, miserable people like Mr A do exist but thankfully, they are in the minority as it doesn't take a genius to realize that Mrs B's approach would allow you to wield far more power and influence.

Let's look at another example from the UK this time, we have a rigid class system in the UK that has been a product of our history and culture. The simpler, older model had three classes: upper, middle and working classes. In 2013, the BBC came up with a more complex system adapted to our modern culture with seven classes: elite, established middle class, technical middle class, new affluent workers, traditional working class, emergent service workers and precariat - I think they deliberately chose an obscure word to describe those at the very bottom of the food chain to avoid causing offence. Some people make the assumption that British snobs would look down on people from inferior classes within this system and would never befriend someone from a lower class - that's not necessarily true and I want you to use the Mr A vs Mrs B analogy to think about this. Yes there may be people who automatically reject those whom they deem to be socially inferior to themselves within this framework, but most of the time, British people are judging others around them and trying to decide where these people belong in this complex social system. I'm a very judgmental person myself: so when I meet someone for the first time, I'm gathering information about them based on first impressions: I look at their clothing, their appearances, I listen to their accents, I try to work out how educated they are and what kind of job they would have, whether they are rich and successful or poor and struggling. I might even sneak in a few questions to try to get more information to fill in the gaps where I am not too sure, all this time I am trying to find out if this person I've met is socially inferior to me, my social equal or socially superior to me. This process is called judging and judgmental people do that all the time to make sense of the world around us, to figure out how to deal with the people we encounter because you can't go through life blindly oblivious to such details, you need to understand what you are dealing with. So I am not just being judgmental because I believe I'm superior to the vast majority of the people I encounter out there, no there is a method to my madness: this is actually an extremely useful tool that I use to manage my relationships in life because I am fully aware that others are judging me at the same time as well, so I also want to know where I stand with this people. 

I'm going to say something quite controversial to provoke a reaction: it is a very fun process! We all have our own little system which we use to judge people we meet. It might be their accent, it might be the way they dress, it might be that one little detail that most people never notice but you use it as your shortcut to evaluate that individual. Naturally, you get to prioritize what is most important to you as you form this personal criteria to judge others - you are the judge, jury and executioner in this process, you wield absolute power and many people indulge in this process because they get a power trip out of it, even if they wouldn't admit it publicly. Let me give you a great example: I remember when I used to work for a company where I had to run the job interviews with prospective applicants. I would love to challenge the candidates and do things they didn't expect, just to see how they would react and cope with the situation. I remember once I looked at a candidate's shoes and socks, I took an instant dislike to his choice of footwear and frowned, I didn't say a word but it was pretty obvious I was not impressed with what I had just seen, I made sure that my facial expression wasn't subtle enough to go unnoticed,  -oh he knew exactly what I was thinking even though I didn't say a word; not that it mattered in the wider scheme of things, but I wanted to deliberately create a situation to see how he would react to my judgment. Would he get defensive about his choice of footwear? Would he sheepishly apologize? Or would he be totally oblivious to what I had just done and choose to ignore it? Well this guy noticed and didn't know how to react, he sheepishly tucked his feet under the chair, to try to avoid me having a clear view of those shoes. I was having fun, like a predator playing with its prey - I had deliberately created an awkward situation and I wanted to see how he would deal with something like that. I could've been nice and ignored those shoes but I had so much more fun being a judgmental bitch. It is great fun to wield power over others and that's why we judge those around us all the time. Perhaps I chose a rather extreme example to illustrate how judging others can be a rather fun experience and yes, you could accuse me of having gone on a power trip during that job interview by making that candidate squirm, but this is what judgmental people do all the time. After all, my job then was to find the best possible candidate for that job, not to high five and compliment every single candidate that applied - I had to find innovative ways to stress test them and see how they coped with challenging situations. 

But allow me to clarify something important please: just because I am very judgmental doesn't mean that I am impossible to please, quite the opposite. I see myself as that gymnastics judge who is harsh but fair and yes, if you do perform well for me, I will give you the gold medal. Judgmental people are also the ones who are most likely to reward you when you do well in life, they are the ones who will be the first to come forward and notice you for being brilliant. I remember the feeling I got when I handled out the medals at the gymnastics competition - I was the one who decided which kid went home feeling like a champion and which kid was going to cry all the way home, it was a massive power trip. But part of that power trip meant going to the gold medalist and singing praises about just how incredibly well that gymnast had performed, how their parents should be so proud of their little champion and how all the other kids should look up to this incredible role model. Thus, part of being judgmental means putting the gold medalists on a pedestal as it is all part of a power dynamic, to demonstrate that you have the power to make someone feel so good whilst crushing the spirit of others. Those are two sides of the same coin. People who are like Mr A surrender the power to influence others, they simply alienate others by appearing so hateful whilst if you are judgmental like Mrs B, people are usually okay with that judgment as long as it is fair and reasonable. With Mr A, it is game over before it begin - winning is not an option that is available. But with Mrs B, the game may be hard but you are in control of the outcome which does include winning that coveted gold medal. French people are a lot more like Mrs B than Mr A - they may be very judgmental, but they are not hateful or malicious at all. You simply have to speak French really well in order to emerge with the gold medal at the end of their judgment process. So if a French person treats you with contempt because you speak French poorly, then let me put this to you - accept that this is just their judgment, your French is not good enough that's a sign that you should have made a greater effort to have mastered the French language. You can't act like that unreasonable father at the gymnastics competition who demands that his daughter who performed a terrible routine be treated the same way as the gymnast who performed the routine that won the gold medal. In life, you reap what you sow and that is harsh but fair. 

So that's it from me on this topic, what do you think? Have you met French people before who react negatively at your valiant attempt to speak French? Do you know the difference between Mr A and Mrs B, do you recognize when someone is being judgmental and when someone is simply being hateful? How do you deal with very judgmental people in your life? Furthermore, do you roll your eyes if someone tells you that you speak Latvian really well if you have simply uttered three or four words in Latvian? I feel that praise and accolades are really only meaningful if you have been subjected to a test and you have met a minimum standard, praise shouldn't be given out as if they were some kind of participation medal at a sports event where you get rewarded simply for showing up. Yeah right, get real. Many thanks for reading.