Pattie: You have been here for how long? Four months now?
Ezra: Yeah, about.
Pattie: Do you know Chinese better now?
Ezra: Oh, definitely. I remember, when I first arrived in Guangzhou, my girlfriend was haggling with a sales clerk over the price of a mobile phone.
Pattie: Oh, yeah. Many Chinese like to bargain. It happens almost everywhere.
Ezra: I mean, I understand that. But the speed of the conversation got faster and faster, until it seemed to me that they would fight. My perception of the tone was that it was a violent shouting match. The truth was that it was a perfectly normal conversation.
Pattie: A shouting match? You're so funny. You must be exaggerating. I don't believe it.
Ezra: I am not exaggerating at all. I'm telling you the truth. That was how I felt at that time.
Pattie: Yes, perhaps. Chinese usually don't notice that sort of thing. Maybe it's quite natural to us.
Ezra: Yes, absolutely true.
Ezra felt that his girlfriend's bargaining with a sales cleck in Chinese sounded like a shouting match. Pattie thinks he must be exaggerating.