> Okay, now that you... slightly got to know me, here's my question. You know how when you go to a restaurant that has a different nationality sort of thing (for example, Chinese), the waiters and waitresses always seem to know exactly what language you speak? Like, the moment my family and I walked into a restaurant, they spoke Mandarin Chinese to us. However, when another family who looked Asian walked in, they knew - without listening in on the conversations of the family - that that family didn't speak Mandarin, and therefore, they spoke English/American to them.

Man, I wish people around here could do that. Whenever I'm at a Chinese mall and somesuch, people talk to me in Cantonese. But I'm a huge banana, and thus don't understand any of it. It gets annoying, especially when jerks do it behind your back, where "behind your back" means "in front of you in a language you don't understand but clearly talking about you".

As for your scenario, if I had to guess, I'd guess the family comes to that restaurant often and the staff would already know about them.